Alexander Somek holds the Charles E. Floete Chair in Law at the University of Iowa College of Law, where he became a Professor of Law in 2003. Before moving to the United States, he was an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law of the University of Vienna. His work has focused mostly on historical transformations of the authority of law and how these are reflected in legal scholarship. Professor Somek is the author of a number of books and numerous articles on European Union law, comparative law, public international law and jurisprudence. His book Individualism (2008) examines constituent power, while his most recent book, Engineering Equality: An Essay on European Anti-Discrimination Law (2011), explores the transformation of solidarity in the European Union. Professor Somek earned “habilitations” in both Legal Philosophy (1992) and Public Law (2001) at the University of Vienna. As a LAPA fellow he will work on his project “The Cosmopolitan Constitution.”