Directory

Tamara Tabo

Associate Professor of Academic Success and Academic Success Program Director

Full-Time Faculty

School of Law

Profile

Tamara Tabo joined the University of Dayton School of Law as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Academic Success Program in May 2017 and was appointed Assistant Professor of Academic Success in July 2018 and Associate Professor of Academic Success in 2020.

Before coming to Dayton, Professor Tabo led the Center for Legal Pedagogy at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University, where she used research and methods from cognitive science to study and improve what law schools teach and how law students learn. Her role combined elements of academic support for students, training and development for faculty, and researching and reporting on learning theory and instructional design, applied to the law school context. Partnering with the Office of Assessment, she collected and analyzed data on student learning outcomes and designed empirically-driven school-wide strategies to improve first-year student retention and post-graduation bar examination passage rates. To support other members of the faculty in optimizing their teaching, she made frequent presentations on emergent topics in education, reported on the Center’s research findings, and led programs in which interested professors could learn about teaching methodologies or educational technology, and brainstorm ways to incorporate these ideas into their courses.

Additionally, Professor Tabo has worked as a legal journalist and commentator, covering the U.S. Supreme Court, criminal justice policy, and the intersection of politics and law for media outlets such NPR and MSNBC, as well as contributing regularly to Houston Public Media and writing a long-running column on the website Above the Law.

Professor Tabo graduated summa cum laude from Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law, after serving as editor-in-chief of the Thurgood Marshall Law Review. After graduation, she clerked for Judge Edith H. Jones on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She has also served as a research fellow for the Initiative for Neuroscience and Law, led by Dr. David Eagleman.

She is excited to bring both her love of the law and her knowledge of how we learn to UDSL.