Sanne Knudsen, the Stimson Bullitt Endowed Professor of Environmental Law and Associate Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law, will join the Stegner Center as the Twelfth Annual Stegner Center Young Scholar on November 3 and 4, 2016. During her residency, Professor Knudsen will deliver a Young Scholar Lecture entitled “The Flip Side of Michigan v. EPA: Are Cumulative Impacts Centrally Relevant?” at the College of Law and a Downtown CLE presentation, “Has Michigan v. EPA Elevated the Importance of Cost?,” at Holland & Hart law firm. Her Young Scholar Lecture will be published in an upcoming environmental and natural resources law issue of the student-edited Utah Law Review.
“Professor Knudsen has generated an impressive body of scholarship on cumulative environmental impacts in a variety of legal and factual contexts, starting with her work on the Exxon Valdez and other marine oil spills,” noted Robin Craig, Acting Director of the Stegner Center. “I’m looking forward to hearing her take on Michigan v. EPA, a potentially critical U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding evaluations of pollution problems.” In commenting on her upcoming visit, Professor Knudsen said, ““I am delighted to be selected as the Stegner Center’s Young Scholar for 2016. Long before I entered academia, I viewed the Stegner Center as a hub of intellectual discourse on environmental and natural resources law. I am honored to be part of that discourse now. I am particularly excited because the S.J. Quinney College of Law is where I began my academic career, and I look forward to reconnecting with my mentors and friends.”
Professor Knudsen joined the University of Washington School of Law in 2011. She teaches Natural Resources Law, Environmental Law, Administrative Law, and Civil Procedure. Her scholarship focuses on how environmental laws and tort liability frameworks can better reduce or redress long-term and multiple-stressor environmental harms. Her most recent work, entitled “Regulating Cumulative Risk,” is forthcoming in the Minnesota Law Review and argues that the public health implications of combined exposures to pesticides and chemicals requires greater regulatory emphasis on cumulative risk assessment.
Professor Knudsen received a B.S. in Environmental Engineering from Northwestern University, an M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Michigan, and a J.D. from the University of Michigan, where she graduated Order of the Coif and was a member of the Michigan Law Review. After graduating from law school, she clerked for the Honorable Ronald M. Gould on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Professor Knudsen went on to practice law in the area of environmental litigation at Faegre & Benson in Minneapolis and Sidley, Austin Brown & Wood in Chicago. While at Faegre, Professor Knudsen represented numerous environmental public interest organizations on a pro bono basis. Her clients included Defenders of Wildlife, the Humane Society of the United States, Sierra Club, Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, and Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness.
After leaving law practice, Professor Knudsen became a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. While in Utah, she taught Natural Resources Law, Environmental Practice, and Wildlife Law. She also supervised clinical students in conjunction with the Western Resource Advocates Environmental Law Clinic.
The Young Scholars Program, which is made possible by the generous support of the Cultural Vision Fund, is designed to recognize and establish a relationship with promising scholars early in their academic careers. Recipients are selected based on their accomplishments, the quality of their academic work, and their promise in the field of environmental and natural resources law and policy.
Past Stegner Center Young Scholars include: Professor Dave Owen, UC Hastings College of Law; Professor Emily Hammond, George Washington University Law School; Professor Katrina Kuh, Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University; Professor Noah Hall, Wayne State University of Law; Professor Lesley McAllister, University of San Diego School of Law (now at the U.C. Davis School of Law); Professor Jason Czarnezki, Vermont Law School (now at Pace); Professor Barbara Cosens, University of Idaho School of Law; Professor Kim Connolly, University of South Carolina School of Law (now at SUNY Buffalo); Professor Jamison Colburn, Western New England College School of Law (now at Penn State); Professor Amy Sinden, Temple University Beasley School of Law; and Professor Reed Benson, University of Wyoming College of Law (now at New Mexico).