We are delighted to welcome a new group of Student Fellows to the Petrie-Flom Center family: Spencer Andrews, Zain Khalid, Abeer Malik, Rebekah Ninan, Rupa Palanki, and Jessica Samuels. These six students are a fantastic cohort of scholars who join us from Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School.
Each will undertake a year-long research project with mentorship from Center faculty and affiliates and will blog here at Bill of Health regularly. Keep an eye out for their bylines!
Spencer Andrews (J.D. 2026) hails from small-town Indiana and worked for three years as a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) before attending law school. His background in neuroscience inspired him to dig deeper into the societal impacts of addiction and mental illness in the U.S.
Zain Khalid (M.B.E 2025) is Assistant Professor at Brown University’s Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and a master’s candidate at Harvard Medical School’s Center for Bioethics. He is board certified in adult and forensic psychiatry and practices as a psychiatric intensivist. His research interests include structural determination and competence in mental healthcare, psychiatric ethics and pedagogy in psychiatric medicine. He has published on topics at the intersection of law and psychiatry, including on the use of neurobiological evidence in sentencing mitigation, and on clinical matters such as the inpatient management of co-occurring disorders.
Abeer Malik’s (LL.M. 2025) research interests are medical law, law and technology, and corporate law. Her research project will examine the legal and ethical implications of AI’s integration into precision medicine (PM), focusing on the distinct challenges AI introduces compared to general healthcare.
Rebekah Ninan’s (J.D. 2025) research interests are focused on the intersection of health and the law. She is interested in mass torts, drug product liability, pharmaceutical antitrust, and the administrative law that affects health-related regulations promulgated by agencies.
Rupa Palanki’s (J.D. 2026) research interests include innovative medical technologies and chronic disease policy. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied Economics and interned for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and the Louisiana Department of Health. Prior to law school, she worked as an analyst at ClearView Healthcare Partners.
Jessica Samuels (J.D./MPH 2025) is a third-year dual degree law and public health student. Her research interests include genetics, environmental health sciences, novel biotechnologies, and the FDA regulatory process. She has previously published work on the accuracy of ultrasound in predicting malignant ovarian masses. At HLS, Jessica is co-president of the Harvard Health Law Society.