Staff

The Center’s staff

Ethan Michelson, Interim Executive Director

Ethan Michelson is Professor of Sociology, Professor and Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, and Professor of Sociology and Law at the IU Maurer School of Law. He was named Interim Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Democracy in July 2026.

His research on Chinese lawyers, social conflict in rural China, and gender injustice in China’s civil litigation system has been published as articles in a variety of disciplinary and area studies journals, including the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Sociology, the China Quarterly, Law & Society Review, Social Problems, and Journal of Conflict Resolution, and as chapters in a number of edited volumes. His book, Decoupling: Gender Injustice in China’s Divorce Courts, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022.

 

Rafael Macía, Interim Associate Director

Rafael Macía joined the Maurer faculty as a Visiting Assistant Professor in 2024, after serving as a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Law School’s Center for Constitutional Democracy (CCD)—where he previously obtained his PhD in Law and Democracy. As a CCD Fellow, Professor Macía has supported legal-reform efforts in different parts of the world, including Liberia and Myanmar. He has also served as a consultant for the Constitution-Building Programme at International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization dedicated to advancing the rule of law and democratic-reform processes around the globe. At Maurer, he teaches in the areas of constitutional law and constitutional design. He was named the interim associate director of the CCD in July 2026. Professor Macía has also taught political theory at Indiana State University. Professor Macía is himself a graduate of Maurer’s JD program. Prior to moving to the U.S., he obtained a law degree from his native Spain.

Professor Macía’s work focuses on the relationship between constitutional supremacy and popular self-determination in the context of constitutional reform processes. His current research studies the potential drawbacks and implications of adopting the theory of “constituent power” as a principle informing the task of constitutional design and adjudication. His work has appeared in the International Journal of Constitutional Law and the European Constitutional Law Review, among other publications.

 

Hon. David F. Hamilton, Associate Director

Judge David Hamilton currently serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He was appointed to the Seventh Circuit by President Obama in 2009. Previously he was chief judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, and had been a district judge on that court since 1994. Judge Hamilton was formerly a partner at Barnes & Thornburg, a private law firm in Indianapolis.

He served as counsel to the Governor of Indiana from 1989 to 1991. Judge Hamilton served as law clerk to Judge Richard D. Cudahy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and is a founding member of the Sagamore Inn of Court in the American Inns of Court. He served as a member of the Indiana State Recount Commission from 1986 to 1987 and as chairman of the Indiana State Ethics Commission from 1991 to 1994.

Timothy William Waters, Associate Director

Professor Waters's scholarly interests include the structure of the inter-state system, ethnic conflict, human rights, transitional justice, and comparative law, especially in European and Islamic contexts. His principal research involves re-defining self-determination to devise an effective right of peaceful secession. He has published extensively in leading journals of international law and international relations, including at Yale, Harvard, NYU, Virginia, and George Washington.

Waters is a frequent contributor to policy debate on international law and politics. His op-eds on Iraq, the Balkans, and international justice have appeared in the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. He has presented his work to universities, government bodies, and institutes in the U.S., Europe, Iran, and Israel.

Waters has served as a consultant on legal system reform for the Open Society Institute, UNDP, and the Latvian Ministry of Justice, on ethnic discrimination for Human Rights Watch, and as a consultant to the defense on Padilla et al. He monitored implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia for the OSCE, and at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, he helped draft the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Hungary, where he first developed his interest in regulation of minority-majority conflicts.

During several research fellowships at Harvard Law School and graduate studies at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, Waters explored the interaction of law and ethnic conflict. He has also studied at the Lund University in Sweden and Bogazici University in Turkey, and visited at Boston University, the University of Mississippi, Bard College, and Central European University in Budapest.