USD Law Professor Adam Kern Named Co-Recipient of 2026 Sanders Prize in Political Philosophy
University of San Diego (USD) School of Law commends Assistant Professor of Law Adam Kern, who was a co-recipient of the 2026 Sanders Prize in Political Philosophy, awarded by the Marc Sanders Foundation. It is presented every two years and recognizes eligible early-career scholars, graduate students, and independent researchers whose original work advances central debates in political and social philosophy.
Kern, alongside Princeton University Professor of Philosophy Jacob Nebel, received the honor for their article, “Migration and Social Population Ethics,” which will be published in Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. The paper explores how societies should evaluate choices that change the size or composition of their populations through migration, a subject the authors term “social population ethics.”
Judges praised the work as “a ground-breaking project” that “introduces a new set of questions for theorizing about distributive justice.”
Kern's research centers on international tax policy, multinational corporate taxation, distributive justice, and optimal tax design. His scholarship has appeared in leading publications, including the Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, NYU Law Review, and Philosophy & Public Affairs. He earned a PhD from Princeton University and a JD from NYU School of Law, where he was a Furman Scholar and won both the David F. Bradford Memorial Prize for Best Paper in Taxation and the Harry J. Rudick Award for Excellence in Taxation.
Nebel focuses on population ethics, the formal structure of value relations, and the aggregation of well-being.
Read “Migration and Social Population Ethics” here.
About the School of Law
Each year, USD Law educates approximately 800 Juris Doctor and graduate law students from throughout the United States and around the world. The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest law and taxation.
USD School of Law is one of the 88 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates. The law school’s faculty is a strong group of outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations. The school is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Founded in 1954, the law school is part of the University of San Diego, a private, independent, Roman Catholic university chartered in 1949.