The Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University is proud to announce the appointment of an accomplished leadership team to continue to guide its top ranked Environmental Law Program into the future. Haub Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law, Katrina Fischer Kuh, will serve as Faculty Director of the Environmental Law Program. Achinthi C. Vithanage, Professor of Law for Designated Service in Environmental Law and Associate Director of Environmental Law Programs, will assume the role of Executive Director of the Environmental Law Program. Additionally, Josh Galperin, Associate Professor of Law, will take on the role of Faculty Director of the Sustainable Business Law Hub.
This leadership transition, to take effect in June 2025, follows the impressive tenure of Jason J. Czarnezki, who has overseen the program since 2013. Under his guidance, the Environmental Law Program rose to new heights, achieving a #1 ranking in Environmental Law by U.S. News & World Report for the fifth time and the fourth consecutive year in 2024. Professor Czarnezki will depart Haub Law to become the next Dean of Chicago-Kent College of Law at Illinois Institute of Technology.
“Since its establishment, our Environmental Law Program has been at the forefront of shaping the future of environmental law and sustainability,” Horace E. Anderson, Jr., Dean of Haub Law. “We are fortunate to have a dedicated team of environmental leaders, scholars, and practitioners who will continue to elevate this legacy. Katy, Achinthi, and Josh, have been instrumental in our program’s success throughout the years and have established themselves as thought leaders in the field. We are thrilled to have this strong leadership team in place to build on our premier environmental law program and allow it to continue to thrive and innovate into the future.”
Established in 1976, the Pace | Haub Law Environmental Law Program has a global footprint, addresses today’s most pressing challenges, and is recognized both nationally and internationally as a leading legacy in environmental law. The program’s continued evolution includes new partnerships, innovative programs, and leading faculty scholarship that is shaping the future of environmental law and policy on a national and global scale.
The Pace | Haub Law Environmental Law Program is widely known for its innovative programs, expert faculty, and renowned scholarship, and for attracting distinguished guest speakers, visiting scholars, and an exceptional student body. In 2021, the Law School launched the Sustainable Business Law Hub, creating new opportunities for training, policy, and research at the intersection of environmental law and business law. The Sustainable Business Law Hub’s advisory board features prominent experts in the field, and the Hub also provides paid internship opportunities for students through partnerships with leading firms and companies, and through collaborations with the region’s business community. In partnership with the Westchester County Association, the Hub hosts the ‘Profit & Purpose’ Sustainable Business Conference each year, as well as the Sustainable Business and Private Governance Scholarship Workshop.
In recent years, the environmental law program also founded the Environmental Law and Policy Hack Competition for law schools throughout the country and the Future Environmental Law Professors Workshop which trains new and aspiring professors pursuing a career in environmental law. Other well-known programs and opportunities at the school include the annual hosting of the preeminent environmental law moot court competition, the Jeffrey G. Miller National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition. The Law School also hosts lectures and panels throughout the year featuring environmental scholars, advocates, and policymakers, and it recognizes leading international environmentalists through the annual presentation of the Elisabeth Haub Award for Environmental Law and Diplomacy, considered one of the world’s most distinguished awards in the field of environmental law.
Haub Law offers more than 40 environmental law courses, as well as dozens of internship and externship opportunities. In recent years, the Law School has expanded its environmental law faculty, attracting prominent scholars in the field as full-time and visiting assistant professors. Students have the opportunity to research emerging areas of environmental law alongside experts in the field through the Environmental Law Program’s various centers and institutes, including the Pace Energy & Climate Center and Land Use Law Center, and can directly represent clients through the Environmental Litigation Clinic and the Food and Farm Business Law Clinic. These opportunities provide Haub Law students with the tools they need to be national and international leaders in environmental law.
“It has been an honor to lead Haub Law’s environmental law program for the last twelve plus years,” said Professor Czarnezki. “Haub Law’s strength lies in its exceptional faculty, scholarship, and forward-thinking programs. Working alongside Katy, Achinthi, Josh, and all my environmental colleagues towards a healthier environmental future has been a privilege. Under this trio of impressive internal leadership, Haub Law’s environmental legacy has a bright future ahead.”
Katrina Fischer Kuh will serve as the Faculty Director of the Environmental Law Program. She joined the Elisabeth Haub School of Law faculty as the Haub Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law in 2017. She was previously on the faculty at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, where she was a Professor of Law and served as an Associate Dean of Intellectual Life. Professor Kuh’s scholarship focuses on climate change and sustainability, and she has taught Environmental Law, International Environmental Law, Global Climate Change and U.S. Law, Administrative Law, and Torts. Most recently, she is the co-editor of the book Adapting to High-Level Warming: Law, Governance, and Equity. Before entering academia, Professor Kuh worked in the environmental and litigation practice groups in the New York office of Arnold & Porter LLP and served as an advisor on natural resource policy in the U.S. Senate. She also served as a law clerk to Judge Charles S. Haight of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and Judge Diana Gribbon Motz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Achinthi C. Vithanage will serve as the Executive Director of the Environmental Law Program. Prior to joining Haub Law as the Associate Director of Environmental Law Programs, Professor of Law for Designated Service in Environmental Law, she was a Visiting Associate Professor of Law and the first Environmental and Energy Law Fellow with an international law background at the George Washington University Law School (GW Law). Professor Vithanage was born in Sri Lanka, lived in the United Arab Emirates, practiced as an attorney in the state of New South Wales (NSW) in Australia. She also worked at the Energy & Water Ombudsman of NSW and practiced in the corporate, commercial, and property legal sectors in Sydney, Australia. Since her arrival in the United States, Professor Vithanage was recognized as one of the country’s leading environmental and energy lawyers in LawDragon’s inaugural list in 2021 and was subsequently listed in LawDragon’s 500 Leading Environmental Lawyers Guides for 2023 and 2024. Within the American Bar Association’s Section on Environment Energy & Resources (SEER) she serves on its Governing Council and is the founding Co-Chair of the Environmental Law Society Network. She serves on the Secretariat to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Academy of Environmental Law, is a member of the World Commission on Environmental Law, and an originating member of the International Association of Energy Law, a global network of early career energy law professors.
Josh Galperin will serve as the Faculty Director of the Sustainable Business Law Hub at Haub Law. Professor Joshua Galperin joined the Haub Law faculty in July 2021 as an Associate Professor. Before that, Professor Galperin was on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law since 2018. Prior to the University of Pittsburgh, Professor Galperin was the Director of the Environmental Protection Clinic, Lecturer in Law, and a Research Scholar at Yale Law School. He has been a fellow at Yale University’s Pauli Murray College from 2017 to the present. Professor Galperin was also a lecturer and the Environmental Law and Policy Program Director at the Yale School of the Environment (YSE). In addition to directing and teaching the Environmental Protection Clinic, Professor Galperin directed the dual law-environment degree program between YSE and Pace, Vermont, and Yale law schools. He was a lead collaborator in the Land Use Collaborative between YSE and Pace. Professor Galperin was also the associate director for the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, where he oversaw all operations of the Center including budgeting, fundraising, research, and teaching. Professor Galperin’s research and teaching cover environmental law, administrative law, food and agriculture law and policy, property, constitutional law, and tort law and he has published extensively on those topics. Before Yale, Professor Galperin worked for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), where he was a policy analyst and research attorney. Before SACE, Professor Galperin was a legislative counsel for the Vermont General Assembly, where he primarily staffed the House and Senate committees on agriculture.
“With this accomplished leadership team, the Pace | Haub Law Environmental Law Program is set to continue its legacy as a global leader in environmental legal education,” said Dean Horace Anderson. “Together, Professors Kuh, Vithanage, and Galperin bring decades of combined expertise and a commitment to advancing environmental law and policy through scholarship, innovation, and collaboration.”
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