Nikolas Bowie is an assistant professor of law at Harvard Law School. He is a historian who teaches and writes about federal and state constitutional law and local government law.

Professor Bowie's research focuses on critical legal histories of democracy in the United States. He has written about the exclusion of workers from corporate governance, the exclusion of noncitizens from constitutional governance, and the relationship between self-government, written constitutions, and judicial review. His articles have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Law and History Review, the Stanford Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal. He has also written essays for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Slate, and other online publications. 

In addition to teaching and writing, Professor Bowie litigates criminal and civil appeals. He is on the board of Lawyers for Civil Rights, which advocates on behalf of immigrants and people of color; MassVote, which advocates for voting rights and election reform; and People’s Parity Project, which organizes law students and lawyers to build a justice system that values people over profits. He sits on the City of Cambridge’s planning board, which applies and recommends changes to the city’s zoning ordinance. He is also an avid marathoner.

Professor Bowie received a BA in history from Yale and a JD and PhD in history from Harvard. Between law school and graduate school, Professor Bowie clerked for Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the US Supreme Court.