Uma Outka, a Professor of Law at the University of Kansas School of Law, will join the Stegner Center as the Fourteenth Annual Stegner Center Young Scholar on November 14 and 15, 2018. She will deliver a Young Scholar Lecture at the College of Law on November 14 on “State Energy Law for a Modern Low-Carbon Grid” and give a CLE presentation at Holland & Hart on November 15 on “Recent State Law Developments for Renewable Energy.” Her Young Scholar Lecture will be published in an upcoming environmental and natural resources law issue of the student-edited Utah Law Review.
“Professor Outka’s scholarship is widely recognized as she grapples with the environmental and other challenges of moving to low carbon, alternative energy sources,” observed Bob Keiter, Director of the Stegner Center. In commenting on her upcoming visit, Professor Outka said, ““Utah has a stellar faculty in energy, natural resources, and environmental law, so I am truly honored to deliver the Stegner Center Young Scholar Lecture. I’m looking forward to engaging with the faculty, students, and community at large on energy law developments across the states.”
Professor Outka works at the intersection between energy law and environmental law, with a focus on renewable energy and the transition to a low-carbon electricity sector. She has served on the University of Kansas School of Law faculty since 2011, and is an Affiliate Faculty member of the Environmental Studies Program, the Center for Environmental Policy, and the Institute for Social and Policy Research. Her scholarship has appeared in law journals including Vanderbilt Law Review, Ecology Law Quarterly, Colorado Law Review and the Stanford Environmental Law Journal, and her chapter on “Legal Regimes for Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry” is featured in the comparative law reference volume Research Handbook on Climate Change Mitigation Law (Edward Elgar Publ. 2015). Professor Outka teaches courses in energy law, property, environmental law, and climate change law and policy. In 2013, she was the recipient of the Moreau Faculty Award, an honor bestowed on a faculty member by the entire student body. In 2015, she received the campus-wide Sustainability Leadership Faculty Award.
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 Felix Mormann, Associate Professor of Law, Texas A&M University School of Law; Professor Sanne Knudsen, University of Washington School of Law; 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; the late Professor Lesley McAllister, then at the University of San Diego 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).