RALEIGH — Campbell Law School Legal Research and Writing Assistant Professor Sarah Cansler has been selected as a fellow in the inaugural cohort of the CAA Academic Alliance’s newly launched AI Technologies Champion Network for the 2025–26 academic year.
Cansler is among just 22 faculty and staff members chosen from nearly 400 applicants across the Alliance’s 13 member institutions, according to a release. The competitive selection recognizes individuals who are leading thoughtful, innovative and responsible integration of artificial intelligence in higher education, spanning areas such as teaching and learning, research, student success, leadership development and institutional effectiveness.
The AI Technologies Champion Network was created to foster collaboration and innovation while ensuring inclusive and ethical adoption of AI across Alliance institutions. By connecting leaders from multiple campuses, the initiative aims to accelerate shared learning, support institutional transformation, and position participating teams for future inter-institutional funding opportunities.
Launched in October 2025, the network brings together AI champions from across the Alliance to form a collaborative community focused on developing cohesive strategies for AI implementation in higher education.
Cansler earned her law degree with honors from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 2017. During law school she served as a staff member and on the editorial board of the North Carolina Law Review, as president of the American Constitution Society and as s research assistant. She graduated with honors and a bachelor of arts in history from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 2013.
She serves as Senior Privacy Counsel for Blackbaud, where she provides data privacy advice to all aspects of a cloud software company with a global presence offering products in the fundraising and social good sphere. She has also taught an introductory course on data privacy with an emphasis on U.S. state privacy laws and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.
Prior to joining Blackbaud, Candler worked as an associate at Womble Bond Dickinson in the firm’s Labor & Employment Practice Group and Alston & Bird in the firm’s Litigation and Trial Practice Group, both in Raleigh. She also served as a law clerk to The Honorable Gregory P. McGuire in the North Carolina Business Court in Raleigh.She is also credentialed in data privacy as a OneTrust Certified Privacy Professional and a Certified Information Privacy Professional/Europe from International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).
ABOUT CAMPBELL LAW
Since its founding in 1976, Campbell Law has developed lawyers who possess moral conviction, social compassion, and professional competence, and who view the law as a calling to serve others. Among its accolades, the school has been recognized by the American Bar Association (ABA) as having the nation’s top Professionalism Program and by the American Academy of Trial Lawyers for having the nation’s best Trial Advocacy Program. Campbell Law boasts more than 5,000 alumni, who make their home in nearly all 50 states and beyond. In 2026, Campbell Law is celebrating 50 years of graduating legal leaders and 17 years of being located in a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of North Carolina’s Capital City.