Cheney, Monika Gruter

Executive Director

Phone: 650.854.1191

Fax: 650.854.1192

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Monika Gruter Cheney became Executive Director and President, Board of Directors of the Gruter Institute in August 2003. Prior to her appointment as Executive Director, she served as the Institute's Associate Director.
Before joining the Gruter Institute in this capacity, Ms. Cheney practiced in the intellectual property and technology transactions group at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich, Rosati in Palo Alto, California. Representative transactions included licensing, development, service, distribution, manufacturing, electronic commerce and corporate partnering and merger agreements for clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to early stage technology and bio-tech start-ups. Ms. Cheney also practiced in the litigation department of Thelen Reid & Priest, focusing primarily on commercial and government contracts defense litigation. During her years of legal practice, Ms. Cheney was actively engaged with the Gruter Institute in her capacity as Secretary of the Board, chair of conference planning, legal counsel and research consultant.
Ms. Cheney earned her J.D. in 1998 from Georgetown University Law Center, where she served on the Georgetown International Environmental Law Review. Ms. Cheney externed for the Honorable James R. Browning, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She earned her B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and International Relations from Claremont McKenna College in 1995.
Ms. Cheney is actively involved in all research initiatives of the Gruter Institute. Her research focus has included research on: property, intellectual property and the brain; behavioral building blocks of successful markets (that is, what behavioral building blocks – e.g. trust, reciprocity, cooperation and self-interest - are necessary for successful markets and a free enterprise system generally to work); and fostering continued research and teaching in law and biology.

Relevant publications include:

1. 1.The Evolution of Law and Biology (2001) S. Peterson and A. Somit, Eds. in Evolutionary Approaches in the Behavioral Sciences. M. Gruter Morhenn [Cheney] and M. Gruter (119-134) Elsevier Science, New York.
   

2. 2.Building Blocks of Legal Behaviour: The Evolution of Law (2000) Leonard D. Katz, Ed. in Evolutionary Origins of Morality. M. Gruter and M. Gruter Morhenn [Cheney] . Imprint Academic, Thorverton , UK .