Sandra Zellmer is the Law Alumni Professor of Natural Resources Law and McCollum Research Chair at the University of Nebraska College of Law, where she began teaching in 2003. She is a co-director of the University's Water Resources Research Initiative, an interdisciplinary educational and research effort.
In addition to her role as a Member Scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform, she is a Senior Specialist (Roster Candidate) with the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, an Associate Member of the Resilience Alliance, a multidisciplinary research group that explores the dynamics of complex adaptive systems, a member of the Commission on Environmental Law of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), and a trustee of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation. She has recently been named a member for the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council’s Committee on Missouri River Recovery and Associated Sediment Management Issues (2008-2010). Between 2002-2004, Professor Zellmer served as the Chair of the Committee on Marine Resources for the American Bar Association Section on Environment, Energy and Resources, and as an advisor to the Council of Great Lakes Governors Water Working Group Task Force on Tribal/First Nation Treaties and Reserved Rights in the context of a proposed Great Lakes Water Compact, which was adopted in 2008.
Zellmer teaches water law, environmental law, natural resources, torts, and related courses. In 2007 and 2008, she taught a new course on comparative environmental law at Lewis and Clark Law School and at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. She has published numerous articles and commentary on natural resources law, water conservation and use, environmental law and related topics, as well as a casebook, Natural Resources Law (West 2006), with Professors Laitos, Cole, and Wood.
Zellmer was a faculty member at the University of Toledo College of Law from 1998-2003. She has also been a visiting professor at both Tulane and Drake University Law Schools. Prior to teaching, Zellmer was a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division, litigating public lands, wildlife and NEPA issues for the National Park Service, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies. She also practiced law at Faegre & Benson in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and clerked for the Honorable William W. Justice, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas.
Sandra Zellmer
University of Nebraska College of Law
Lincoln, NE
402.472.1245 email website
