The Yale Law Journal is pleased to announce the three winners of its annual Student and Recent Graduate Essay Competition, focused this year on emerging issues in health law. The three Essays will be published in the Yale Law Journal Forum in early 2019. All Forum pieces are fully searchable and available on LexisNexis and Westlaw, as well as on our website.

Information about the three winning Essays and their authors is below.

Anthony Albanese, The Past, Present, and Future of Section 1115: Learning from History to Improve the Medicaid Waiver Regime Today

Anthony Albanese is a J.D. candidate at the Georgetown University Law Center. He also holds a B.A. in Government and Economics from Georgetown University. His studies have focused on public benefits law and policy, with a particular interest in Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. His experiences in health law include Medicaid policy work at the National Health Law Program, drafting Medicare decisions at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Departmental Appeals Board, and providing direct representation to benefits recipients at Georgetown’s Health Justice Alliance medical-legal partnership.

Kyle T. Edwards, Good and Bad Patient Involvement: Implementing the Patient Involvement Provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act

Kyle T. Edwards earned her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2018, where she was Executive Editor for Articles & Essays for the Yale Law Journal and co-chair of the Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals Board. At Yale, she focused on health law and policy as a clinical student for the Global Health Justice Partnership and a student fellow for the Solomon Center for Health Law & Policy. She received her A.B. summa cum laude from Princeton University and her DPhil in Public Health from the University of Oxford, where she was a Marshall Scholar. Her doctoral dissertation examined the roles of democratic deliberation, scientific expertise, and patient and public involvement in the regulation of emerging biotechnologies in the United Kingdom. She currently serves as a law clerk for the Honorable Leondra R. Kruger on the California Supreme Court. 

Elizabeth Villarreal, Pregnant Women and Living Wills: A Behavioral Economic Analysis

Elizabeth Villarreal is a J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. She was previously a fellow for the Solomon Center for Health Law & Policy, president of the Law Student Alliance for Reproductive Justice, and a clinical student in the Global Health Justice Practicum. As a Yale Law Women Fellow, she worked on Senator Blumenthal’s women’s health, reproductive rights, and judiciary committee portfolios. She received her B.A. cum laude in History from Yale College.