The Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University has announced that the 2022 Elisabeth Haub Award for Environmental Law and Diplomacy will be awarded to Professor Paulo de Bessa Antunes, an environmental scholar and leading professor of environmental law at Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, and head of the Environmental Practice of Campos Mello Advogados (Brazil). Professor de Bessa Antunes was also a Haub Visiting Scholar at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law in the spring of 2019.

Professor Bessa will receive the 2022 Award in recognition of his tireless advocacy to support the development and implementation of laws protecting the environment in Brazil, including filing several successful lawsuits to protect the environment over the three decades he worked in the Federal Public Prosecution Service. These lawsuits resulted in the establishment of the Reserva Beach protected area in Rio de Janeiro; the destruction of highly toxic PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), so that they were not released into the environment; and the abandonment of plans to construct a bridge in indigenous territory over the objection of the indigenous Xerente. In gratitude, the Xerente presented him with an honorary citizenship.

Professor Bessa is a leading contributor to, proponent, and defender of the environmental rule of law in Brazil. He is the author of several books, including the seminal text Direito Ambiental, and articles and his work is regularly cited by Brazilian courts, including the Supremo Tribunal Federal (Federal Supreme Court). He is also influential in influencing public environmental policy, exhibiting courage and leadership by co-authoring an open letter critiquing political roll backs in Brazilian environmental policy. He has taught, mentored, and inspired generations of students and young lawyers to care for their country's environmental heritage through law.

The prestigious Elisabeth Haub Award for Environmental Law and Diplomacy was established in 1997 by the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, in cooperation with the Haub Family, to honor the legacy of Elisabeth Haub (1899–1977), a noted philanthropist and advocate for strong laws for the conservation of nature. The award is chosen yearly by an esteemed jury of individuals and was first established to commemorate the 25^th anniversary of the United Nations Stockholm Conference and the 5^th anniversary of the United Nations Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit.

“The Elisabeth Haub School of Law’s No. 1 ranked environmental law program continues to train lawyers to understand the intersection between climate justice, the environment and the law,” said Haub Law Dean Horace E. Anderson Jr. “We are honored this year to recognize Professor Paulo de Bessa Antunes for his pioneering work in the protection of the environment in Brazil, especially at such a critical moment with rising levels of illegal deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.”

“We are honored to present Professor Bessa with the Elisabeth Haub Award for Environmental Law and Diplomacy. His exemplary contributions as an innovator, author, leader, and fearless champion of environmental and indigenous rights issues embodies the very spirit of Elisabeth Haub’s advocacy,” said Jason Czarnezki, Associate Dean of Environmental Law Programs and Strategic Initiatives, and Gilbert and Sarah Kerlin Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law. “His achievements in the field are unparalleled.”

“The Elisabeth Haub Award for Environmental Law and Diplomacy recognizes the innovation, skill, and accomplishments of lawyers, diplomats, international civil servants and other advocates who work to create the world environmental order,” said Pace University Trustee Liliane A. Haub. “It is our hope that with this award, we are making a statement in support of those individuals and communities who are fighting to create a more sustainable planet.”

The ceremony for the 2022 Elisabeth Haub Award for Environmental Law and Diplomacy honoring Professor Paulo de Bessa Antunes will take place on Tuesday, November 8 at 6:00 p.m. EST and be broadcast virtually to accommodate a global audience.

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Professor Elizabeth D. Katz of Washington University in St. Louis School of Law has been selected as the 2021-2022 Haub Law Emerging Scholar in Gender & Law for her paper Sex, Suffrage, and State Constitutional Law: Women’s Legal Right to Hold Public Office, 33 Yale J. Law & Feminism. 110 (2022). Professor Katz is an Associate Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis School. During the 2022-2023 academic year, Professor Katz will be a visiting professor of law at Northwestern, Duke, and Boston College. She teaches first-year criminal law, family law, and a seminar on the law’s treatment of race and religion in family contexts, historically and today.

Professor Katz’s research interests include the development of family law and criminal law doctrines and institutions, with special attention to the influence of gender, religion, and race. Her scholarship exploring these issues has appeared in the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the and the William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law.

Professor Katz received her BA, MA, and JD from the University of Virginia and her MA and PhD in History from Harvard University. Prior to her academic work, Professor Katz worked at Covington & Burling LLP. She also clerked for Judge J. Frederick Motz of the United States District Court, District of Maryland.

“Elizabeth Katz has written a masterful piece of legal history, uncovering the multiple strategies that women used to secure their right to hold public office in this country," said Haub Law Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Development, Emily Gold Waldman. "Although we now have a female Vice President of the United States, we cannot take women’s leadership for granted. As Professor Katz shows, there were complex state-by-state battles up through the 1940s. Through litigation, lobbying, and even constitutional reform, women finally secured the right to fully participate as leaders in public life.”

About the Reward

The Haub Law Emerging Scholar Award is presented annually in recognition of excellent legal scholarship related to women, gender and the law published by an individual with five or fewer years of full-time teaching experience. The Haub Law School invites the award recipient to present their winning scholarship to the Haub Law community. After an open call for submissions, papers are reviewed on a blind basis by three members of the Haub Law faculty with expertise in this area. The 2022 judges were Noa Ben-Asher, Bridget Crawford, and Emily Gold Waldman.

Nominations are due by July 1 of each year and can be directed to Professor Bridget Crawford.

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Pace Go-Getters can do it all, said Pace two-time graduate, mother, wife, nurse, and business owner, Dr. Dawn Surajh, DNP, APRN, FNP-C. For Dawn, nursing is not just a passion, it is her foundation.

As an alumna from the Leinhard School of Nursing (LSN) Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) program and Online Accelerated Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program, Dawn took her nursing career to the next level and opened her own nursing aesthetics practice, D’s Aesthetik Inc., in Georgia.

There is a saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and according to Dawn, beauty is also expressive. Aesthetics has allowed her to make others’ dreams come true, and to her that is an art. She uses her artistic skills along with her medical professionalism to treat patients with care and expertise. “Diving into the beauty industry has been nothing but rewarding for me as a cosmetic injector because I get to witness the happy side of patients and the medical field. I see delight from patients when they view their results produced from these magical hands of mine,” said Dawn. She strongly believes in following the mantra, “inject with intent!” guiding her to operate her practice with honesty.

Opening an aesthetic practice takes a lot of patience and trial and error. She was never presented with a blueprint about opening any practice; but felt confident in her Pace education and well accomplished at the end of each degree. “The quality of education and training experience I received at Pace were nothing short of amazing,” she said. Starting her own business came with challenges, but as her passion and dream, Dawn did not consider this as work. “It takes a lot of hard work, dedication, blood, sweat, tears, and determination to be successful. My biggest take away was to never give up on your dream,” she explained.

“The quality of education and training experience I received at Pace were nothing short of amazing."

—Dr. Dawn Surajh

Dawn chose Georgia as a location for a better family environment for her children. She continues to be dedicated to working on her art of injecting and making clients feel wanted, beautiful and fulfilled. As a business owner, it is not about the money for Dawn, but the rewards behind each procedure from a client standpoint. “If my clients are happy at the end of their treatment, it’s evident that I have done my job and have done it well,” said Dawn. The most rewarding part of her day is making her clients smile at the end of their treatment with the “wow” effect as she hands them the mirror.

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Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University Professor Leslie Y. Garfield Tenzer is the host of a newly launched podcast, Legal Tenzer: Casual Conversations on Noteworthy Legal Topics. Created in collaboration with West Academic, Legal Tenzer, will serve as a platform for casual conversations on timely legal issues between Professor Tenzer and prominent legal scholars and practitioners.

"I am so thrilled to be the host of this newly launched podcast by West Academic," said Professor Tenzer, Professor of Law and Luk-Cummings Family Faculty Scholar at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law. "Podcasts have become another learning medium and tool for students and the broader legal community. Throughout this podcast, we will discuss hot topics and timely legal cases, issues, and topics. I look forward to having these interesting casual conversations with West Academic authors and sharing the knowledge through the podcast platform."

The first episode, The Pink Tax, featured Elisabeth Haub School of Law Distinguished Professor Bridget Crawford, speaking with Professor Tenzer on the topic of menstrual equality. Upcoming episodes, released weekly, will focus on topics including the Vanessa Bryant privacy case, and the West Virginia v. EPA decision, featuring Haub Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law Katrina Fischer Kuh.

The new podcast series draws upon the success of Professor Tenzer's widely acclaimed podcast for students, Law to Fact, which was launched in 2017. In Law to Fact, Professor Tenzer highlights substantive legal issues in discussion with distinguished law professors from across the nation. Over time the renowned podcast has become the go to place for all things law, including course material, application tips, study strategies, and career advice—all packed into one podcast.

Professor Tenzer's scholarship and teaching bridge the worlds of theory and practice, mainly regulating conduct in the digital age. Before coming to Pace, Professor Tenzer was a legislative attorney in the Legal Division of the Council of the City of New York. Her responsibilities included drafting legislation, organizing public hearings, and coordinating with city agencies and interest groups on the city's legislative process. She currently teaches and writes in Commercial Law, including Contracts and UCC Article 2, Criminal Law, Torts, and Social Media Law. Professor Tenzer's most recent scholarship focuses on issues concerning emotional harm and the impact of the Internet on the law. She received her BA from the University of Florida and her JD from the University of Florida College of Law.

Each episode ofLegal Tenzer: Casual Conversations on Noteworthy Legal Topics is available online to the public for one week upon release or through a subscription to West Academic.