Lateef Mtima is the Founder and Director of IIPSJ; he is also a Professor of Law at the Howard University School of Law where he regularly teaches courses in intellectual property law and commercial law. Professor Mtima is a graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School.

He has published numerous articles on copyright, publicity rights, and diversity in the legal profession, and is the editor of Intellectual Property, Social Justice, and Entrepreneurship: From Swords to Ploughshares (Edward Elgar 2015), and a co-author of Transnational Intellectual Property Law (West Academic Publishing 2015).

Kim Tignor’s expertise includes intellectual property, free expression, tech innovation, diversity in media, and economic justice. Throughout her career, Kim has focused on legal issues surrounding underprivileged persons and advancing the causes of equality and social justice. She is particularly well-versed in working across multicultural issues and topics of key interest to activists and artists of color.

Her impressive legal experience spans from directing policy at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to coordinating state and national level pipeline and advocacy efforts for Presidential judicial nominees at the VENG Group. She received her JD from Georgetown University, and an undergraduate degree in Economics and Information Technology from the College of William and Mary.

Tashia Bunch is the Program Director of IIPSJ. She began working with the Institute in 2009 and has worked on various projects over the years including speaking at and co-chairing the annual CLE program.

Tashia is a 2006 graduate of Howard University School of Law, which is how she first learned about IIPSJ. She currently works as an Interlocutory Attorney with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Previous positions at the USPTO included serving as a Legal Policy Attorney, the Acting Trademarks Chief of Staff and as a trademark examining attorney. Tashia has also worked in private practice as an attorney in the Trademark and Copyright groups at Fish & Richardson, P.C., and with Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, LLC.

Dr Metka Potočnik is the Associate Director (International Programmes) of IIPSJ. She is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Wolverhampton (UK), a holder of research degrees from King’s College London (LLM) and Queen Mary University London (PhD), and a Member of the Slovenian Bar (EU) (2008 – current). Dr Potočnik is on the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College (UK AHRC PRC) with research and teaching affiliations at several UK Higher Education Institutions (University of London, University of Aberdeen, …).

Dr Potočnik is a published author in intellectual property, alternative dispute resolution and foreign direct investment. In recent years, she combines her feminist research on the role of intellectual property in perpetuating the existing inequalities of women and gender expansive musicians, with her activism at The F-List for Music CIC (UK), which is committed to gender equality in the music industries. Dr Potočnik is an F-List Director and the lead of the F-List Gender in Music Research Hub, an interdisciplinary collective of feminist researchers in music.

Steven D. Jamar is the Associate Director for Scholarly Initiatives. He was previously the Associate Director of IIPSJ from 2002 through 2012, and the Associate Director for International Programs from 2012 through 2022. He is a Professor of Law Emeritus at the Howard University School of Law where he regularly teaches constitutional law and copyright law. He is a graduate of Carleton College, earned his J.D. from Hamline University School of Law, and his LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center.

He has published numerous articles on copyright and on international human rights.