The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law is proud to announce that Susan Biniaz, Brenda Mallory and Jessica Wentz are joining the center as non-resident senior fellows.
Susan Biniaz was a Deputy Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State. From 1989 to early 2017, she was the lead climate lawyer and a climate negotiator. She joined the State Department in 1984 after graduating from Columbia Law School and clerking on the 9th Circuit. At State, she negotiated many key international environmental agreements. She teaches international environmental law as a member of Columbia’s adjunct faculty. She has also been on the adjunct faculty at the University of Chicago Law School and Yale Law School and was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Energy Policy Institute of Chicago. She is currently a Senior Fellow and Lecturer at the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, a Senior Fellow at the UN Foundation, a Senior Advisor at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Climate Advisers. As a non-resident senior fellow at the Sabin Center, Sue will continue to develop and publish essential thought leadership on international climate law and policy.
Brenda Mallory is the executive director of and Senior Counsel for the Resource Legacy Fund’s Conservation Litigation
Project, which was created to protect environmental and conservation values on public lands. Largely through collaboration with academics, Brenda promotes the development of legal scholarship and a thoughtful public narrative around emerging public lands issues. During the Obama Administration, Brenda served as the General Counsel for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, supporting the Administration in advancing the President’s environmental, energy, and natural resources agenda. Prior to joining CEQ, among other roles, Brenda served as the Acting General Counsel and the Principal Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Before EPA, she was a Director at the environmental law firm Beveridge and Diamond where she chaired the Natural Resources Practice Group. She currently is a Fellow in the American College of Environmental Lawyers, a member of the Environmental Defense Fund’s Litigation Advocacy Committee, Environmental Policy Innovation Center’s Advisory Committee, on the Advisory Council for Women in Conservation Leadership, and on the Board of Directors of the Environmental Law Institute and the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. Brenda is a graduate of Columbia Law School (Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar)and Yale College. At the Center, Brenda will explore issues at the intersection of climate change and natural resources management and protection.
Jessica Wentz is a former climate law fellow at the Sabin Center, and a leading expert on climate change and environmental impact assessment, as well as the relationship between climate science and the law. Her work has spanned a variety of topics related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, sustainable development, and environmental justice. She has also written on the nexus between climate change and human rights law. Jessica previously worked as a Visiting Associate Professor and Environmental Program Fellow at the George Washington University Law School. She is a 2012 graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was awarded the Alfred S. Forsyth Prize for “dedication to the advancement of environmental law.” She also works as the contracts officer and business operations manager at Remote Sensing Systems, a climate science research firm in California. In her work with the Center, Jessica will continue to collaborate on investigations into the dynamics between attribution science and litigation.
Tiffany is the Communications Associate at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
