About the Authors

Daniel A. Farber

Daniel Farber is the Sho Sato Professor of Law and chair of the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the Faculty Director of the Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment. Professor Farber serves on the editorial board of Foundation Press, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Law Institute. He is the editor of Issues in Legal Scholarship.

Professor Farber is a graduate of the University of Illinois, where he earned his B.A., M.A., and J.D. degrees. He graduated, summa cum laude, from the College of Law and was the class valedictorian. He also served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Illinois Law Review. After graduation from law school, he was a law clerk for Judge Philip W. Tone of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and then for Justice John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States. Professor Farber practiced law with Sidley & Austin, where he primarily worked on energy issues, before joining the University of Illinois College of Law faculty in 1978. He was a member of the University of Minnesota Law School faculty from1981 to 2002. At Minnesota, he was the McKnight Presidential Professor of Public Law. He also has been a Visiting Professor at the Stanford Law School, Harvard Law School, and the University of Chicago Law School. He was a co-founder and co-editor of Constitutional Commentary, a faculty-edited journal of constitutional law scholarship.

Jim Chen

Jim Chen joined the University of Louisville as dean of the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law in January 2007. Dean Chen is a prolific and influential scholar whose works span subjects such as administrative law, agricultural law, constitutional law, economic regulation, environmental law, industrial policy, legislation, and natural resources law. He is the coauthor of Disasters and the Law: Katrina and Beyond (Aspen Publishers, 2006), the first book to provide comprehensive coverage of the legal issues surrounding natural disasters. He provides expert advice on the law of regulated industries, particularly telecommunications. Dean Chen has also taught courses in criminal law and food and drug law.

Robert Verchick

Rob Verchick, a nationally recognized expert in environmental law, heads Loyola's Center for Environmental Law and Land Use. He is a graduate of Stanford University and of Harvard Law School, where he served as Articles Editor for the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Before coming to Loyola, he taught on the law faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) for 11 years and, before that, practiced environmental law at Riddell Williams P.S. in Seattle. He has been a visiting professor at Peking University, Aarhus University (Denmark), Lewis & Clark College, and Seattle University. He has received teaching awards at Loyola University, UMKC, Seattle University, and Harvard University.

Verchick served for five years on the board of the Center for Progressive Reform, a policy institute dedicated to making a positive case for health, safety, and environmental protection. Verchick's scholarship focuses on environmental policy as it relates to constitutional law, environmental justice, risk management, and natural disaster. His work has appeared in, among other places, the California Law Review, the Southern California Law Review, and the Harvard Environmental Law Review. He is author or co-author of three books, including Facing Catastrophe: Environmental Action for a Post-Katrina World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 2010).

Verchick is currently on leave from Loyola University and serving in the Obama administration. He is Deputy Associate Administrator at E.P.A.’s Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation in Washington, D.C.

Lisa Sun

Professor Sun teaches Disaster Law, Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, and Torts. Her primary research interest is in the emerging field of Disaster Law. She is coauthor of the leading disaster law textbook, Disaster Law and Policy, with Dan Farber, Jim Chen, and Rob Verchick. Her current research focuses on the implications of disaster mythology for our legal system of disaster response.