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Ross Jones ’00

Titles

  • Adjunct Faculty

Degrees

  • JD/MELP, Vermont Law School, 2000
  • PhD, Northwestern University
  • BS, University of Chicago

Contact

Biography

I am an Adjunct Professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School where I have developed, revised, and/or taught a range of online courses including Science for Environmental Law, Environmental Law, Natural Resources Law, as well as courses on Climate Change Adaptation and Climate Change Law. In addition, I am a Senior Lecturer in the Environmental Studies Department at Dartmouth College where I teach Environmental Law and, occasionally, Environmental Science. I also advise students and conduct research on the integration of ecology and environmental law, particularly as it relates to biodiversity protection and natural resource management. Finally, I am a consultant on a range of environmental projects—ranging from providing scientific and legal expertise for litigation to working with private and public groups on sustainability issues.

I grew up in the mountains and deserts of the western United States, where I developed my ties with nature. I moved to Chicago for college (where I majored in biology at the University of Chicago) and graduate school (where I received a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Northwestern University). My dissertation combined fieldwork (in the caves and springs of West Virginia) with laboratory and theoretical work to study the ecological causes of natural selection, along with the interaction of selection with genetic drift, gene flow, and development.

From Chicago, my wife and I moved to Washington, D.C., for two years and then to Newfoundland, Canada, where I spent six years doing work in marine ecology and learning about the ways that science, culture, law, and economics can interact to cause and cure real-world problems. This new perspective was motivated by the collapse of the North Atlantic cod fishery: an environmental, economic, and cultural disaster. It was this event that led me to back to the U.S. to attend law school – where I received a joint JD/Master’s from Vermont Law School (our old name) – with the goal of combining science and law in ways that will better protect human and non-human populations and the ecosystems on which they depend.

Curriculum Vitae

Expertise

  • Environmental Law
  • Natural Resources Law and Management
  • Science and the Law

Departments

  • Environmental Law Center
  • New Economy Law Center

Courses Taught

  • Ecology
  • Environmental Law
  • Natural Resources Law
  • Science for Environmental Law