2026 Conference Presenters

Dr. Melynda J. Price, J.D., is the Monuments Workshop Co-Director, the Director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, and Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan.   

She was previously the inaugural J. David Rosenberg Professor of Law and the John and Joan Gaines Professor of Humanities at the University of Kentucky, where she also served as Director of the Gaines Center for the Humanities. Dr. Price’s research focuses on race, gender and citizenship, the politics of punishment and the role of law in the politics of race and ethnicity in the U.S. and at its borders. Her research and fellowship recognitions include a 2017 University of Kentucky Research Professor distinction, a 2016-2027 Princeton University fellowship in the Law and Public Affairs program, and a 2008 Ford Foundation Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship, hosted by the Capital Punishment Center at the University of Texas School of Law. 

Dr. Price is the author of At the Cross: Race, Religion and Citizenship in the Politics of the Death Penalty (Oxford University Press, 2015).  Her work has been published in peer-reviewed social science and law journals, newspapers, and literary journals. She holds a doctorate in Political Science from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law. She completed her undergraduate studies in Physics at Prairie View A&M University.

Zachary Bray, J.D. is the Monuments Workshop Co-Director and Ashland-Spears Distinguished Research Professor of Law at the University of Kentucky J. David Rosenberg College of Law. A Kentucky native, Professor Bray began his career at the University of Houston Law Center in 2010, where he was awarded tenure before he returned home in 2016. Professor Bray's research on monument law and monument conflicts, private land trusts, religious land use, low-income housing, the Endangered Species Act, and groundwater law has been published widely, including the William & Mary Law Review, the Brigham Young University Law Review, and the Harvard Environmental Law Review. 

Professor Bray has taught a wide range of courses, including Property, Land Use, Trust and Estates, and Statutory Interpretation & Regulation. He received the 2015 Provost's Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Houston, the 2022 University of Kentucky Alumni Association's Great Teacher Award, and the 2024 Duncan Teaching Award from the J. David Rosenberg College of Law. He has also taught at the Washington University School of Law and the William & Mary Law School. 

Professor Bray earned a J.D. from Yale Law School. He completed his undergraduate studies in Philosophy and History at the University of Notre Dame. Before entering academia, Professor Bray worked in Kentucky for the Honorable Jennifer B. Coffman, in Houston for the Honorable Carolyn Dineen King, and in Los Angeles for Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP. He is an active member of the Kentucky bar and has been admitted to practice in California (inactive) as well as multiple federal courts.