Faculty/Staff Profile Title

Carstens joined the University of Baltimore School of Law as Associate Professor of Law in 2023 to teach Property, Introduction to Lawyering Skills, Civil Procedure, and international and cultural heritage law courses. She previously taught Property, Civil Procedure, Copyright, Lawyering, and other IP and cultural heritage courses at Georgetown Law and the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, as well as in London-based international law programs for Georgetown Law-University College London and for the University of Tulsa Law School.

Her research and scholarship focus primarily on legal issues at the intersections of cultural heritage, international law, and property law. She was appointed as an expert advisor on cultural property issues at the U.S. Department of State, chaired the Cultural Heritage and the Arts Interest Group of the American Society of International Law, and co-chaired the former Art & Cultural Heritage certificate program offered by Georgetown Law Executive Education. She has presented widely on issues concerning the legal protection of cultural sites and artifacts, including at U.S. federal government institutions, the Acropolis Museum, Chatham House (Royal Institute of Foreign Affairs, London), and leading universities worldwide. Her books include Intersections in International Cultural Heritage Law (as co-editor and contributor) and Safeguarding Cultural Property During Armed Conflict (forthcoming). In addition, she has authored book chapters, law review articles, and other works on a range of topics covering international criminal law and the law of armed conflict, copyright law, treaty interpretation, special masters in the Supreme Court, and cultural heritage law, including in the Minnesota Law Review, the Washington Law Review, the Stanford Journal of International Law, the American Journal of International Law, the British Year Book of International Law, and the American Journal of Legal History. She also serves as a deputy editor and reviewer for peer-reviewed publications.

After law school, Carstens clerked for Judge Diana Gribbon Motz on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and practiced litigation in Washington and in London at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. She received her J.D. cum laude from Georgetown Law, where she served as Executive Articles Editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. While completing her DPhil in Law (research doctorate in Public International Law), she was competitively selected by the Oxford Law Faculty for a research residency at Yale Law School and awarded a grant for summer study at the Hague Academy of International Law.