The Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources and the Environment welcomes the many new faculty and staff members who have joined us in the past year. These new members of our community bring an abundance of experience—in a wide range of specialties—to the Stegner Center’s research, teaching, and community initiatives. We are honored to have them with us as we continue our legacy of impact in environmental law across Utah and around the world.
You can see our full faculty and staff list here.
FULL-TIME FACULTY
LINGXI CHENYANG
Associate Professor Lingxi Chenyang joins the college from Indiana University, where she was a visiting scholar at the Maurer School of Law and environmental law fellow at the Environmental Resilience Institute. Chenyang teaches and writes about climate change law, environmental law, and property law. Her scholarship has appeared in Ecology Law Quarterly and Environmental Law Reporter. Chenyang is a graduate of Yale Law School and Dartmouth College.
RUHAN NAGRA
Associate Professor Ruhan Nagra joins Utah Law after serving as director of the Environmental Justice Initiative and senior clinical supervisor at the University Network for Human Rights, which she co-founded in 2018. At the University Network, Nagra worked with frontline communities in the U.S. and globally to challenge environmental injustice. Nagra will be teaching environmental justice, as well launching Utah Law’s newly-established Environmental Justice Clinic.
JAMIE GIBBS-PLEUNE
Associate Professor (Research) Jamie Gibbs-Pleune focuses on issues of climate change and conservation. Gibbs-Pleune served as an associate clinical professor at the College of Law from 2011 to 2015, teaching environmental practice and directing the college’s Environmental Law Clinic. Prior to joining the college in her current role, she was engaged in private practice as a shareholder at the law firm of Richards, Brandt, Miller, Nelson.
VISITING FACULTY
BRIGHAM DANIELS
Brig Daniels is the Marion B. and Rulon A. Earl Professor at Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark School of Law. Daniels’s scholarship focuses on the creation and administration of environmental law, the commons, and public risk management, and his work frequently relies on empirical methods ranging from field experiments to archival research. He will be teaching torts, property law, and environmental law.
TIM DUANE
Tim Duane is an attorney and consultant in the fields of renewable energy, climate, land use, natural resources, water, and environmental policy, planning and law. He has served on the faculties of the University of San Diego School of Law, the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the University of California, Berkeley. Duane will be teaching renewable energy law, wildlife and biodiversity law, and land use regulation.
RESEARCH FELLOWS
TOM MITCHELL
Tom Mitchell focuses on natural resources law, with particular interests in correlative rights in oil and gas conservation law. Mitchell previously served as assistant attorney general for the State of Utah, and prior to that as senior counsel for the state’s School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, where he advised the agency in areas of mineral development and royalty matters, real estate development, timber, water resources, and other areas.
BETH PARKER
Beth Parker’s interests center around indigenous rights and the environment, conservation, climate change and public lands. Parker is of counsel at Lear & Lear, where she founded and chaired the firm’s tribal law practice. Beth’s private practice focuses on the needs of tribal
governments, with a focus on tribal governance and issues unique to tribal lands, including environmental, natural resource and water rights.
STAFF
EMILY GAINES CROCKETT
As program manager for the Environmental Dispute Resolution (EDR) program, Emily Gaines Crockett provides overall support for EDR initiatives and communications. She previously managed education and outreach programs at the University of Utah’s Center for Science & Mathematics Education and served on the Board of Directors for Friends of Great Salt Lake.
JORDAN KATCHER
Jordan Katcher is initiatives facilitator at the EDR program, where she supports oversight and facilitation for the Gateway and Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) initiative, mentors graduate students, conducts situation assessments, and develops new tools and resources for training and public education. She is also an adjunct instructor at the University of Utah’s City & Metropolitan Planning Department.