On September 6, 2024, the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University hosted the eleventh annual Future Environmental Law Professors Workshop. The prestigious annual workshop is designed for Visiting Assistant Professors, Fellows, Researchers, Law Clerks, Practitioners, and others, including current students, who are currently, plan to go on, or are considering the academic teaching market in the areas of environmental law, natural resources law, food and agriculture law, energy law, land use planning, and/or ocean and coastal resources law.

“This full-day workshop allows participants who have the shared goal of entering the environmental law academic teaching market to learn from established environmental academics,” said Jason Czarnezki, Gilbert and Sarah Kerlin Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law and Associate Dean of Environmental Law Programs and Strategic Initiatives. “Pace | Haub Law has established itself as the premier environmental law program and this workshop allows participants an opportunity to gain an insider’s view into establishing themselves in the environmental academic field.” During the course of the workshop, participants received advice on the environmental law teaching market, obtained an insider’s view on the appointments process from faculty with extensive hiring experience, learned about the history and future of environmental law in law schools, participated in a mock AALS interview and gained feedback from environmental law professors, and presented work to future colleagues in the environmental law academy through mock job talks.

This year’s workshop kicked off with introductory remarks by Associate Dean and Professor of Law Jason Czarnezki, followed by a panel discussion on “Navigating the Environmental Law Professor Job Market Post Pandemic,” and mock interviews. The afternoon sessions included several timely topics, case studies, and discussions. Each year, the workshop also features a keynote lunch address featuring a noted environmental academic. This year’s keynote address, “A qualitative empirical assessment of whether and how environmental constitutional rights matter to state natural resource managers,” was delivered by Sonya Ziaja, an Assistant Professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Professor Ziaja was also recently selected to receive the 2024–2025 Pace |Haub Environmental Law Distinguished Junior Scholar Award.

The workshop concluded with an evening reception co-sponsored by Pace | Haub Environmental Law and the Early Environmental Law Scholars (EELS) and served as the opening reception for the inaugural annual conference of EELS, an organization seeking to foster community building, idea exchange, and professional development for emerging scholars in the field.

The Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University is proud to announce that Professor Sonya Ziaja has been selected to receive the 2024–2025 Pace |Haub Environmental Law Distinguished Junior Scholar Award. The Haub Environmental Law Distinguished Junior Scholar Award is presented annually to an emerging junior environmental law professor who exhibits scholarly excellence and promise at an early stage in their career. The Haub Environmental Law Faculty solicits nominations from law professors throughout the country and selects a recipient from that pool of nominations. The award recipient is invited to present his/her recent scholarship to the Haub Law community.

Professor Sonya Ziaja is an Assistant Professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law where she teaches Environmental Law, Climate Adaptation, Law and Equity, and Property. Her research interests focus on the overlapping areas of environmental governance and law and technology and society. “Professor Ziaja’s background in geography, water policy, and law allow her to approach environmental law and the climate crisis from a unique viewpoint,” said Jason Czarnezki, Gilbert and Sarah Kerlin Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law and Associate Dean of Environmental Law Programs and Strategic Initiatives. “Our Haub Law community will benefit tremendously from her shared practical and academic knowledge.”

Professor Ziaja’s scholarship has been widely published in journals such as Georgetown Law Journal, Ecology Law Quarterly, and Arizona State Law Journal, among other law reviews and peer reviewed journals. Her article, “How Algorithm Assisted Decision Making Is Influencing Environmental Law and Climate Adaptation” was selected to appear, condensed and reprinted, in the 2023 Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review. Her research has informed the climate adaptation strategy of the U.S. National Parks Service and the first climate adaptation regulation of investor-owned energy utilities in California.

“It is an honor to receive the 2024–2025 Pace | Haub Environmental Law Distinguished Junior Scholar Award,” said Professor Sonya Ziaja. “Haub Law’s Environmental Law Program is consistently recognized as the number one environmental law program in the United States, and I am honored to be recognized by the institution. Sharing my scholarship and research while learning from the Haub Law community is a privilege.”

Before joining the University of Baltimore School of Law, Professor Ziaja worked in energy regulation at the California Public Utilities Commission and was the research lead for the Water, Energy, Climate Nexus at the California Energy Commission. She holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Arizona, MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management from the University of Oxford, and JD from the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco.

Professor Sonya Ziaja will deliver the lunch keynote presentation on “A qualitative empirical assessment of whether and how environmental constitutional rights matter to state natural resource managers” at the 11th annual Future Environmental Law Professors Workshop organized and hosted by the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University.

Clinical Assistant Professor Akil DuPont, MFA, Media, Communications, and Visual Arts, won the Best Production award at the Spring/Summer 2024 New York Theater Festival for Underground, a story of the enslaved, told with the spirituals that guided them to freedom, and inspired by real events in America’s history. His role was as a writer, producer and director.

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Of his win, he said, “This award means so much to me! I've had this project inside me since 2007, before I went to film school. There was a lot of self-study to transition my art from film to theater. For the past 10 years, I've been studying the craft of live narrative performance in plays and musicals. This award lets me know that hard work, a vision, the right cast and crew, plus a little luck can make magic happen!”

On an unrelated but synchronistic note, Dupont’s Best Production Award was tied with the theatrical work, The Book or, Dear Reader, by Pace students Ava Resco ‘25 (Sands College), Gannon Ripchik ’25 (Sands College), Adam Scot ’25 (Sands College), Brooke Lyn Sicignano ’25 (Sands College), Anna Marie Tobin ‘25, Film and Screen Studies (Dyson), Directing (Sands College).