Beth Van Schaak teaches in the areas of international human rights, international criminal law, and atrocities prevention. She is also a faculty fellow with the Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice. Van Schaack's current scholarship is primarily concerned with thinking rigorously and creatively about how the international community can better design and implement bespoke responses to communities at acute risk of mass violence, full-blown crises like Syria, and situations emerging from episodes of bloodshed. Outside academia, Van Schaack has served as Deputy to the Ambassador-at- Large for War Crimes Issues in the Office of Global Criminal Justice of the U.S. Department of State. She continues to serve as a Special Government Expert on the State Department's Advisory Committee on International Law. At Stanford, she has also been a Visiting Scholar with the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS), and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) of the Freeman Spogli Institute. Van Schaack has also been in private practice, in the areas of commercial law, intellectual property, international law, and human rights. She continues to advise a number of human rights and international justice organizations.