Ari is a legal scholar and sociologist studying prisons. Her research interests center on the intersection of criminal law, prison law, disability law, and constitutional law. One line of her work uses mixed empirical methods — analyzing administrative data, interviews, and ethnographic observations — to examine the national scope and consequences of the criminal prosecution of incarcerated persons for in-custody conduct. Another line of her work examines state constitutional anti-punishment clauses in California and Illinois and their application in conditions and sentencing challenges. Ari’s scholarship has been published or is forthcoming in a broad range of journals including Stanford Law Review, Law and Society Review, Law and Social Inquiry, Northwestern University Law Review, Lancet, and Schizophrenia Bulletin.

Prior to joining Stanford Law, Ari clerked for Judge William A. Fletcher on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Goodwin Liu on the Supreme Court of California. She also worked as an associate attorney at Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP in San Francisco, where she represented two classes of incarcerated persons in federal court.

Ari graduated summa cum laude from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law with a JD/PhD in Sociology. She received the John Paul Stevens Prize for highest GPA of graduating law students. While a law student, she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Northwestern University Law Review and worked in the Children and Family Justice Center clinic. Ari received her BA with High Honors in Sociology and High Honors in Neuroscience and Behavior from Wesleyan University.