Professor Woods teaches and writes in the areas of criminal law, family law, law & sexuality, constitutional law, and legal ethics. His current scholarship uses methods in law and criminology to explore the policing and criminalization of LGBT people and racial and ethnic minorities, as well as the systemic barriers that LGBT youth face in the family and juvenile justice systems. Woods serves as a faculty advisor to the law school’s chapter of the American Constitution Society.

Before joining the University of Arkansas, Professor Woods was the Richard Taylor Law Fellow at the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy. While working for the Williams Institute, Professor Woods authored model legislation and served as an expert witness before California legislators in support of the first state law banning the “gay and trans panic” defenses. He also taught constitutional law, advanced criminal law, and law & sexuality at UCLA School of Law.

Professor Woods received his A.B. in Social Studies from Harvard University, and J.D. from UCLA School of Law, where he graduated Order of the Coif and served as a Senior Editor of the UCLA Law Review. After law school, Professor Woods was awarded a Gates Scholarship to attend the University of Cambridge, where he received his Ph.D. and M.Phil. in Criminology. He clerked for the Honorable Jennifer Walker Elrod on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.