Maneka Sinha

Maneka Sinha has extensive experience in criminal litigation and is recognized for her expertise in forensic evidence and technology issues. Her scholarship explores the use of forensic evidence and policing technology in the criminal legal system.

Professor Sinha's article, The Automated Fourth Amendment, received the Excellence in Scholarship award at the 2024 Workshop for AAPI/MENA Women in the Legal Academy. Her article, Challenging Automated Suspicion, was co-recipient of the Joel R. Reidenberg Award for Outstanding Scholarship by a Junior Scholar at the 2024 Privacy Law Scholars Conference. Professor Sinha was named a 2023-2024 AALS Bellow Scholar for her research exploring how policing technology reliability should be evaluated under the Fourth Amendment.

In the fall 2025 semester, Professor Sinha is a Visiting Professor of Clinical Law at NYU Law, where she is teaching the school's first Forensic Defense Clinic.

Prior to joining GW Law, Professor Sinha was a Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, where she directed the Criminal Defense Clinic and taught courses on forensic evidence and technology. Before that, Professor Sinha spent ten years at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where she served as senior advisor to the agency’s director on forensic evidence issues and represented indigent clients charged with crimes in the District of Columbia. She also served as head of the agency’s nationally recognized Forensic Practice Group, training and supervising lawyers involved in forensic evidence litigation locally and nationwide, while personally litigating complex forensic evidence issues.

In 2017, Professor Sinha was a fellow with the International Legal Foundation, supporting its work to establish a public defender agency in Nepal. In 2015, she served as a Brian Roberts Fellow in the West Bank, training and supervising Palestinian public defenders.