Keynote Speaker
Fred Krupp, '78
President
Environmental Defense Fund
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) President Fred Krupp, who has guided EDF for three decades, is a widely recognized leader of the international environmental community. He is an influential voice on climate change, energy, and sustainability issues, and an eloquent champion for harnessing the power of the marketplace to protect our environment. Krupp is coauthor with Miriam Horn of The New York Times bestseller Earth: The Sequel—The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming.
Under Krupp's leadership, EDF has become one of the world's largest and most influential environmental organizations. Since 1984, when he joined as executive director, EDF's annual operating budget has grown from $3 million to $130 million, full-time staff has increased from 50 to 450, membership has expanded from 40,000 to more than one million, and new offices have opened in Arkansas, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Texas, Beijing, London, and La Paz, Mexico. Among the group's many achievements, EDF is the architect of the federal market-based acid rain policy that has reduced average U.S. air concentrations of sulfur dioxide by 76 percent since 1990. In 2002, The Economist called it "the greatest green success story of the past decade."
In 2011, serving on U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu's advisory panel for shale gas production, Krupp was a powerful voice for strong regulation and enforcement to protect local communities from air and water pollution caused by natural gas development. He has focused national attention on the problem of methane emissions from the oil-and-gas system. He also has led EDF's innovative corporate partnerships with FedEx, KKR, McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and others. Krupp was educated at Yale and the University of Michigan Law School, and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Haverford College.
Panelists and Moderators
Motoko Aizawa is an internationally recognized expert on standard setting in the environmental, social, and governance dimensions of sustainability and human rights. She is the former head of the Policy and Standards Unit in the Environment and Social Development Department of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), World Bank Group, and was instrumental in bringing about the IFC Performance Standards, including the 2012 version that aligned the Performance Standards with the UN Guiding Principles. Motoko also served as IFC's environmental and social development policy liaison with other World Bank Group institutions, governmental agencies, multilateral and bilateral financial institutions, export credit agencies, and private banks. In that role, she helped develop the Equator Principles for financial institutions, and assisted China in its implementation of the Green Credit Policy. She currently serves as managing director USA of the Institute for Human Rights and Business, and is a senior fellow at the Climate Bonds Initiative. She is also a commissioner of the Washington, D.C., Commission on Human Rights.
Alicia Alvarez is a clinical professor of law and director of the Community and Economic Development Clinic (CEDC) at the University of Michigan Law School. The CEDC provides transactional legal services (including in the area of land use law) to nonprofit and community-based organizations in Detroit and its metro area. The CEDC represents several organizations involved in urban agriculture and sustainable communities. Alvarez also has taught in the Michigan Clinical Law Program. Prior to joining Michigan Law, she taught at DePaul University College of Law in its Community Development Clinic, Asylum and Immigration Clinic, and Civil Litigation Clinic. She has been a visiting professor at the University of Valencia and at Boston College Law School, was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of El Salvador, and has consulted with clinics throughout Latin America. She is active in the Section on Clinical Legal Education of the Association of American Law Schools and is past chair of the AALS Membership Review Committee. She has served as chair of the Legal Educator's Roundtable of the American Bar Association Forum on Affordable Housing and Community Development Law and on the board of directors of the Society of American Law Teachers. Alvarez is the coauthor (with Paul R. Tremblay) of Introduction to Transactional Lawyering Practice (West, 2013).
Sumudu Anopama Atapattu is the director of research centers and senior lecturer at the University of Wisconsin Law School. She teaches in the area of international environmental law. Her book Emerging Principles of International Environmental Law (Transnational Publishers) was published in 2006. She holds an LLM in public international law and a PhD in international environmental law from the University of Cambridge, and is an attorney-at-law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. Her forthcoming book, Human Rights Approaches to Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities, will be published by Routledge in 2015. She is affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Center for South Asia, and was a visiting professor at Japan's Doshisha University Law School in summer 2014. She serves as the lead counsel for human rights at the Center for International Sustainable Development Law in Montreal, and is on the advisory board of the McGill International Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy.
Susan N. Biniaz has served in the Legal Adviser's Office at the U.S. Department of State since 1984. She worked on legal issues related to the Middle East, diplomacy, and outer space before turning to oceans, environmental, and scientific affairs, which have remained her specialization. She was the head of the oceans and environment office for many years before becoming a deputy legal adviser. As deputy, she also supervised the Office of Treaty Affairs and issues related to human rights, the Western Hemisphere, law enforcement, and private international law. She has been the principal lawyer on the climate change negotiations since 1989, which is now her main focus. She attended Yale College and Columbia Law School and clerked for the Hon. Dorothy Nelson on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Daniel M. Bodansky is the Foundation Professor at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. His teaching and research focus on public international law, international environmental law, and international climate change. He previously was the associate dean for faculty development and the Emily and Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law at the University of Georgia School of Law from 2002 to 2009, and was a faculty member at the University of Washington School of Law from 1989 to 2002. Since 2001, he has worked with the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (formerly the Pew Center on Global Climate Change) as a consultant and adviser. He has served on the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law, is the U.S.-nominated arbitrator under the Antarctic Environment Protocol, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Society of International Law. Awards include an International Affairs Fellowship from the Council of Foreign Relations, a Pew Faculty Fellowship in International Affairs, and a Jean Monnet Fellowship from the European University Institute. His book, The Art and Craft of International Environmental Law (Harvard University Press, 2010), received the 2011 Harold and Margaret Sprout Award from the International Studies Association as the best book in the field of international environmental politics. He also co-edited the Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford, 2006). Bodansky received his AB from Harvard College, MPhil from Cambridge University, and JD from Yale Law School.
Sara C. Bronin is an architect and attorney whose scholarly research examines property, land use, historic preservation, green building, and renewable energy law. She currently serves as professor of law and faculty director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Law at the University of Connecticut. Bronin has become one of the foremost scholars in two rapidly evolving areas of law: historic preservation and renewable energy (including microgrids). She has been elected to membership in the American Law Institute, through which she is coordinating the land use (and other portions) of the forthcoming Fourth Restatement of Property. She has degrees from the University of Texas (BA/BArch), University of Oxford (MSc), and Yale Law School (JD). Outside the classroom, Bronin has served as an expert witness and as a consultant to cities, public agencies, and private firms interested in creating or facilitating places of value. Among other projects, she served as one of the lead attorneys and development strategists for the 360 State Street project, a mixed-use, transit-oriented, LEED-Platinum project in New Haven, Connecticut. She chairs the City of Hartford's Planning and Zoning Commission and has overseen sweeping changes to the zoning, subdivision, and inland wetlands regulations. Bronin serves on the boards of the Connecticut Urban Legal Initiative (as chair), the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Connecticut Fund for the Environment. She received the 2014 Connecticut AIA Alice Washburn Award for her design and rehabilitation of her family's Civil War-era brownstone in downtown Hartford.
Andrew P. Buchsbaum is the vice president for conservation action at the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and the interim executive director of the NWF Action Fund, the national political arm of NWF. He oversees the conservation work of NWF's seven regional offices and the partnerships with affiliated conservation organizations in 49 states. In his role with the Action Fund, Buchsbaum leads efforts to build power for conservation in key states and across the nation. Previously, Buchsbaum was the regional executive director of NWF's Great Lakes office and the interim executive director of the NWF Action Fund. In those roles, he co-chaired (and co-founded) the 115-organization Healing Our Waters Coalition. Under his leadership, NWF and Healing Our Waters have helped to win an unprecedented $1.6 billion in federal funding for Great Lakes restoration and new state and federal laws to protect Great Lakes water supplies. Buchsbaum won the Detroit Free Press Michigan Green Leader Award in 2014. A recovering attorney, he has authored and coauthored numerous studies, reports, and law review articles and testified on a wide range of Great Lakes issues before state, regional, and national government bodies. For the past 18 years, he has taught environmental law courses at the University of Michigan Law School. Prior to joining NWF in 1998, Buchsbaum was the senior attorney for the Midwest office of the National Environmental Law Center and the program director for the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan. He received his undergraduate degree at Harvard College and his law degrees at Boalt Hall (University of California, Berkeley) and Georgetown University Law Center.
Marcilynn A. Burke is the associate dean and a tenured professor at the University of Houston Law Center (UHLC). From 2009 to 2013, Burke took leave from UHLC to serve at the U.S. Department of the Interior as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) deputy director for programs and policy. In 2011, President Barack Obama designated her as the acting assistant secretary for land and minerals management. Burke then oversaw the BLM, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, and the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. President Obama nominated Burke in 2012 as his assistant secretary-designate. While awaiting action by the full U.S. Senate, Burke served in that role until January 2013, before resuming her professorship at UHLC. Burke received her bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her law degree from Yale Law School.
Maxine Burkett joined the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa in 2009. She teaches Climate Change Law and Policy, Torts, Environmental Law, International Environmental Law, and International Development. Burkett has written extensively in diverse areas of climate law with a particular focus on climate justice, exploring the disparate impact of climate change on vulnerable communities in the United States and globally. She has presented her research on the law and policy of climate change in the United States, West Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean. She currently serves as co-director of the Hawai'i Presidential Center Initiative, which is coordinating the national, competitive bid to host the Barack Obama Presidential Library. In 2010, Burkett served as the Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics at the Wayne Morse Center, University of Oregon, for the Center's "Climate Ethics and Climate Equity" theme of inquiry. From 2009 to 2012, Burkett also served as the inaugural director of the Center for Island Climate Adaptation and Policy, where she led projects to address climate change policy and planning for island communities globally. Burkett attended Williams College and Exeter College, Oxford University, and received her law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. She served as a law clerk for the Hon. Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, and was a White House intern and an Omidyar Fellow. Prior to joining the University of Hawai'i, she taught at the University of Colorado Law School.
Robin Kundis Craig is the William H. Leary Professor of Law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, where she is also affiliated with the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and the Environment. She teaches Environmental Law, Water Law, Ocean and Coastal Law, Toxic Torts, and Property. Craig specializes in all things water, including the relationships between climate change and water; water and energy; the Clean Water Act; the intersection of water issues and land issues; marine biodiversity and marine-protected areas; water law; and the relationships between environmental law and public health. She is the author or coauthor of six books: The Clean Water Act and the Constitution (ELI, 2nd edition, 2009), Environmental Law in Context (Thomson/West, 3rd edition, 2012), Toxic and Environmental Torts (Thomson/West, 2010), Comparative Ocean Governance: Place-Based Protections in an Era of Climate Change (Edward Elgar, 2012), Modern Water Law (Foundation Press, 2013), and The End of Sustainability (forthcoming, Kansas University Press, 2017). Craig was appointed to three successive National Research Council committees on the Clean Water Act and the Mississippi River and two successive National Research Council committees on the Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Plan; has consulted on water quality issues with the government of Victoria, Australia, and the Council on Environmental Cooperation in Montreal; and was one of 12 marine educators chosen to participate in a 2010 program in the Papahanamokuakea Marine National Monument, spending a week on Midway Atoll. Craig is the chair of the upcoming ABA Section on Environment, Energy, and Resources' (SEER) 33rd Annual Water Law Conference; she also has served as chair of SEER's water resources and marine resources committees and on its executive council, as chair of the AALS Natural Resources Section and Maritime Law Section, and as a consultant to the Environmental Defense Fund and the River Network’s Nutrient Task Force.
Kristina Daugirdas, an assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, teaches Transnational Law, Environmental Law, and a course and seminar on the United Nations and other international organizations. Her research currently focuses on international organizations from the perspective of both international and U.S. law. In 2014, Daugirdas was awarded the Francis Deák Prize for an outstanding article published in the American Journal of International Law by a younger author. An earlier article published in the Maryland Law Review earned an award from the American Constitution Society's Richard D. Cudahy Writing Competition on Regulatory and Administrative Law. Daugirdas currently serves as co-editor of the Contemporary Practice of the United States Section of the American Journal of International Law. Before joining the Michigan faculty, she was an attorney-adviser at the U.S. Department of State Office of the Legal Adviser. In that role, she provided guidance on the negotiation and implementation of UN Security Council sanctions and amicus participation by the U.S. government in lawsuits with foreign policy implications. Daugirdas also clerked for the Hon. Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She earned her JD, magna cum laude, from the New York University School of Law and her AB, with honors, from Brown University.
Kimberley Delfino is the California program director for Defenders of Wildlife. Since joining Defenders in 2000, Delfino has worked on a variety of issues involving natural resources, water, and endangered species. She had developed expertise in California wildlife and land use planning laws, working on legislation to revise the California Natural Community Conservation Planning Act and the California Endangered Species Act. Delfino also works on California water issues, including the Salton Sea, Bay Delta Conservation Plan, and wetlands protection, and serves as a commissioner with the California Water Commission. She has spent the last several years working on renewable energy siting issues in the California Desert and Central Valley, including the California Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan. Before joining Defenders of Wildlife, Delfino worked for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group as a staff attorney and for the California Public Interest Research Group as its legislative director. She began her career as an associate with the public-interest law firm Meyer & Glitzenstein in Washington, D.C., where she specialized in cases involving the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and other environmental laws. Delfino holds a BA in political science, public service from the University of California-Davis and a JD from McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific.
Gene Grace is senior counsel at the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the national trade association for the U.S. wind industry. He represents AWEA on issues before federal agencies and courts, including environmental matters related to wind development. Prior to joining AWEA, he worked on wildlife issues for the federal government and on energy issues in private practice.
Monica Hakimi is a professor of law and the associate dean for academic programming at the University of Michigan Law School. She teaches and writes on public international law and U.S. foreign relations law, with a particular focus on the informal ways in which international law adapts to contemporary challenges. Much of her research addresses that issue in the contexts of human rights law, the law of armed conflict, and the law governing the cross-border use of armed force. Hakimi earned her JD from Yale Law School in 2001 and her BA, summa cum laude, from Duke University. Following law school, she clerked for the Hon. Kimba Wood of the Southern District of New York and later served as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State, where she counseled policymakers on non-proliferation, the reconstruction of Iraq, international investment disputes, and civil aviation. She also served as counsel before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal and worked on cases before the International Court of Justice, U.S. federal courts, and administrative agencies.
Phyllis P. Harris is the senior vice president and chief compliance officer for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., U.S. She leads a team of compliance professionals who identify, mitigate, and monitor compliance risks for all of Wal-Mart's U.S. business divisions. Previously, as vice president for environmental health and safety compliance, Harris was responsible for developing and overseeing environmental compliance programs. Prior to coming to Wal-Mart in 2006, Harris spent 20 years with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, serving as the deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance in Washington, D.C., and as regional counsel in Atlanta. She received her JD from the University of Florida and her BA from Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Harris also serves on the board of directors for the Environmental Law Institute and on the board for the University of Florida's Environmental Law and Land Use Program.
Pam Hartwell is the executive director of Hillview Urban Agriculture Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin. She previously served as the executive director of Sustainable Fairfax in Fairfax, California, from 2004 to 2011. Her focus was on education and advocacy for a variety of sustainability issues in Fairfax and its sphere of influence, which included working on Marin Clean Energy, helping to implement a plastic bag ban by ballot measure, and launching a local currency. In November 2009, she was elected to the Fairfax Town Council, where she focused on ordinances for growing residential food and a garbage hauler contract to reach zero waste goals. She became acting mayor in 2012. In 2011, Hartwell authored the book Grassroots Sustainability: A Guide to Organizing a Thriving Community.
George Heartwell is serving his third term as mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan. He took office on Jan. 1, 2004. During his tenure, city government has implemented a variety of environmental measures, including the purchase of renewable resource energy, the use of alternative fuels in city vehicles, continued attention to water quality in the Grand River, and widespread implementation of energy conservation measures. Grand Rapids is widely recognized as one of the most sustainable cities in America. In January 2007, the United Nations recognized Grand Rapids as a "Regional Center of Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development." In 2010, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce gave Grand Rapids the "Nation's Most Sustainable City" award and in 2012, Heartwell was given the first-place Climate Protection Award by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Heartwell serves on the President's State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience.
James R. Hines Jr. is the L. Hart Wright Collegiate Professor of Law and codirector of the Law and Economics Program at the University of Michigan Law School. He is also the Richard A. Musgrave Collegiate Professor of Economics in U-M's Department of Economics and serves as the research director of the Office of Tax Policy Research in U-M's Stephen M. Ross School of Business. Hines's research is focused on various aspects of taxation. He taught at Princeton and Harvard universities prior to joining the Michigan faculty in 1997, and has held visiting appointments at Columbia University, the London School of Economics, the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard Law School. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, research director of the International Tax Policy Forum, former co-editor of the American Economic Association's Journal of Economic Perspectives, and once, long ago, served as an economist in the U.S. Department of Commerce. He holds a BA and MA from Yale University and a PhD from Harvard, all in economics.
Andrew J. Hoffman is the Holcim (U.S.) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan, a position that holds joint appointments in the Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the School of Natural Resources and Environment. Within this role, Hoffman also serves as director of the Frederick A. and Barbara M. Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise. Hoffman's research uses a sociological perspective to understand the cultural and institutional aspects of environmental issues for organizations. He has published more than 100 articles and book chapters, as well as 12 books, which have been translated into five languages. He earned his PhD in management and civil/environmental engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Anne L. Kelly is the senior director of the policy program at Ceres, a nonprofit advocacy organization that seeks to mobilize investor and business leadership to build a more sustainable global economy. Kelly also directs Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP), a coalition of 34 leading companies seeking to advocate for meaningful climate and energy policy at the federal level. She is a registered lobbyist and is actively engaged on Capitol Hill. An environmental lawyer with 20 years of experience, Kelly has worked as special assistant to EPA Region I Administrator John DeVillars and currently serves on the board of the Environmental League of Massachusetts. In addition to her JD, she holds an MPA from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Nina A. Mendelson, the Joseph L. Sax Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, teaches and conducts research in the areas of administrative law, environmental law, statutory interpretation, and the legislative process. Her work is published in prominent law reviews and has been cited by U.S. Supreme Court justices (in dissent). Her article, "Disclosing Political Oversight of Agency Decision Making," was chosen as the best scholarly article in the field in 2010 by the American Bar Association's Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. She is a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. She currently serves as one of three U.S. special legal advisers to the NAFTA Commission on Environmental Cooperation and is a member scholar at the Center for Progressive Reform. Prior to joining the Michigan Law faculty in 1999, Mendelson served for several years as an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division, litigating and advising other federal agencies on legislative and policy matters. She also participated extensively in federal legislative negotiations. Mendelson earned her AB in economics, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Harvard University. Her JD is from Yale Law School. She clerked for the Hon. Pierre Leval in the Southern District of New York and for the Hon. John Walker Jr., '66, on the Second Circuit. She also has worked for the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and practiced law with Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe of Seattle.
Laura Rubin is the executive director of the Huron River Watershed Council (HRWC). She joined HRWC in 1998 and oversees its programs, administration, and fundraising. She also serves as a spokesperson on local, regional, and state committees and boards, and works with the board of directors to set goals and policies for the organization. She earned a joint master's degree in business administration and science (natural resource policy) at the University of Michigan. Since joining HRWC, Rubin has transformed the nonprofit from a low-profile organization conducting science in the background to a high-impact, high-visibility national leader in the field of watershed management. The council has led in the development and dissemination of cutting-edge conservation and public-education projects and now serves as a model for other watershed organizations around the country. Rubin has successfully bridged the often-divergent interests of environmentalists and commercial developers by first establishing basic needs and shared values—such as a high quality of life, a good community, clean drinking water, attractive natural areas, and the ability to make a living—and then discussing how to reach that common ground in unison. Rubin won River Network's 2013 River Heroes Award, which recognizes those who have made a sustained contribution to river protection.
William L. Thomas heads the environment, health, and safety practice of Willkie, Farr & Gallagher LLP. He advises companies, financiers, and other enterprises on environmental law matters, including transactions, projects, and formulation of management and legal compliance strategy, as well as climate change and other matters of international environmental law and policy. Chambers USA (2014) and Chambers Global (2014) rank Thomas nationally among the leading individuals practicing in the areas of environmental law (transactional) and climate change. He also has been recognized for his expertise in those areas in The Best Lawyers in America and The International Who's Who of Environmental Lawyers. He is a fellow in both the American College of Environmental Lawyers and the American Bar Foundation, and serves on the Strategic Advisory Council of the Frederick A. and Barbara M. Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise and on the external advisory board for the Graham Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan.
David M. Uhlmann is the Jeffrey F. Liss Professor from Practice and the director of the Environmental Law and Policy Program at the University of Michigan Law School, and the 2014-2015 chair of the Dow Postdoctoral Fellows and Distinguished Faculty Fellows in Sustainability at the University of Michigan. His research and advocacy interests include criminal and civil enforcement of environmental laws, worker endangerment, and efforts to address global climate change. Since joining the Michigan faculty in 2007, Uhlmann has published articles in the Michigan Law Review, Harvard Environmental Law Review, Stanford Environmental Law Journal, Maryland Law Review, Utah Law Review, Michigan Journal of Environmental and Administrative Law, Environmental Law Forum, The New York Times, and the American Constitution Society's Issue Briefs series. He is leading the efforts of more than 120 Michigan Law students participating in the Michigan Environmental Crimes Project, the first comprehensive empirical study of criminal enforcement under U.S. pollution laws. Prior to joining the Michigan Law faculty, Uhlmann served for 17 years at the U.S. Department of Justice, the last seven as chief of the Environmental Crimes Section. His work as lead prosecutor in United States v. Elias was chronicled in the book The Cyanide Canary. Uhlmann received a BA in history with high honors from Swarthmore College and a JD from Yale Law School.
David Waskow is the director of the International Climate Action Initiative at the World Resources Institute (WRI). The Initiative focuses on international cooperation that catalyzes and supports action on climate change, including the design of the 2015 international climate agreement and other international policy processes. Prior to WRI, Waskow directed international climate change policy at the development organization Oxfam America and served as climate finance policy coordinator for Oxfam International. Before Oxfam, Waskow served as the international program director for Friends of the Earth, where his role included overseeing the organization's work on the environmental dimensions of trade policy and financial institutions. Waskow has testified before the U.S. Congress on responses to climate change and on trade issues, and is frequently a go-to source on international climate policy for the media, from The New York Times to the Times of India. He holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
Patricia L. Wells has been general counsel of the Denver Board of Water Commissioners since 1991. She spends considerable time dealing with water and natural resource issues, along with an eclectic mix of contract, tort, employment, and municipal law. Prior to joining Denver Water, she served for eight years in the administration of Denver Mayor Federico Peña as either city attorney or deputy city attorney, the first woman to hold either position. Her legal employment includes stints as a staff attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund and as a judicial clerk for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She also has taught local government law at the University of Denver Law School. Wells serves on the governor-appointed Colorado Water Conservation Board and on the disciplinary committee for Colorado Youth Rugby. She served two terms as a member of the governor-appointed Water Quality Control Commission and was a board member of the Colorado Water Trust for eight years. She received her BS from Auburn University and her JD from Harvard Law School.