Elaine Zacharakis

Adjunct Professor, Elaine Zacharakis, is an attorney and consultant in the digital health and life sciences space, with a diverse background in IT consulting, engineering, finance, and business. Adjunct Professor Zacharakis teaches the Privacy and Information Law course at Haub Law for Spring 2025. Additionally, she is an Associate Professor and the HIPAA Compliance Officer for the medical school clinics at NYIT, where she works part-time.

Adjunct Professor Zacharakis has extensive experience within the health law and intellectual property departments of a national law firm, now known as Faegre Drinker. Following this, she transitioned in-house to a senior management role at a disease management subsidiary of Baxter Healthcare, which was sold to Davita. For over ten years, she served as outside counsel to CVS Health, negotiating agreements for Caremark, its PBM unit, and contributing to the expansion of the MinuteClinic business from the East Coast to Hawaii. She is currently engaged as IT counsel for a national health system.

With a robust background in corporate and regulatory healthcare, health information technology, and privacy law, Adjunct Professor Zacharakis is well-versed in these legal domains and has her own firm, Zacharakis Law. In her legal practice, Adjunct Professor Zacharakis has collaborated with various law firms, serving as IT counsel for three major health systems, developing privacy policies for a pharmaceutical company, acting as privacy counsel for a litigation firm in a case against a tech giant, and providing compliance counsel for home health agency chains. She is admitted to practice law in Illinois and New York.

Alongside her work, Adjunct Professor Zacharakis has a wealth of teaching excellence. Besides her role at NYIT, she has previously lectured at the Biotechnology, Management & Entrepreneurship Program at Yeshiva University. During her twelve years in Chicago, she was an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School’s Beazley Institute for Health Law & Policy and the Center for Information Technology & Privacy Law.

Earning her engineering degree from Columbia University, Adjunct Professor Zacharakis worked as a management information systems consultant with Accenture and as an engineer with the Port Authority of NY & NJ, focusing on the World Trade Center project. She currently collaborates with cybersecurity experts to evaluate innovative technologies.

After studying finance and accounting in the IE/OR department at Columbia's engineering school, she pursued an MBA in finance at NYU’s Stern School of Business before entering law school. Recently, Adjunct Professor Zacharakis enrolled in Columbia Business School’s executive program focusing on private equity, venture capital, and value investing while advising digital health startups.

• BS, Industrial Engineering, Columbia University’s School of Engineering & Applied Science
• JD, Notre Dame Law School

• Privacy and Information Law LAW 705

• Innovation in Teaching at the John Marshall Law School’s Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law (now part of the University of Illinois, Chicago)
• Chambers Spotlight New York 2025

Privacy Technology & Healthcare Regulatory