Our Team
Adell Amos
Environment Initiative Executive Director
Clayton R. Hess Professor of Law
541-346-3826
aamos@uoregon.edu
Adell L. Amos holds the Clayton R. Hess Professorship at the University of Oregon School of Law and serves as the Executive Director of the UO’s Environment Initiative. She teaches regularly in the nationally ranked Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program, including courses in Water Law, Federal Administrative Law, Environmental Conflict Resolution, and Oregon Water Law and Policy. Her teaching and scholarship have been recognized by the UO Fund for Faculty Excellence and the Hollis Teaching Awards. Her most recent research focuses on the integration of law and policy into hydrologic and socioeconomic modeling for the Willamette River Basin through a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary effort funded by the NOAA and the National Science Foundation.
Professor Amos earned her B.A in 1995 from Drury College and her J.D. in 1998 from the University of Oregon (Coif). She is a member of the Missouri bar, admitted in 1999. After law school, Amos clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for The Honorable Procter Hug, Jr. (then Chief Judge). Amos first joined the faculty in 2005 after practicing environmental and natural resources law with the U.S. Department of Interior. In 2008, Amos returned to Washington DC to serve in the Obama Administration as the Deputy Solicitor for Land and Water Resources at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Amos returned to the UO School of Law in 2011 as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.
Amos’ research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy, Nature Sustainability, as well as many law reviews and journals. She currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Hewlett Foundation’s Open Rivers Fund. In recognition of her work on water law and policy, she served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in Environmental Law at Vermont Law School and has been a frequent keynote speaker and panelist for a wide range of organizations including the National Judicial College, Washington University, American Water Resources Association, the Oregon Legislative Caucus, the Federal District Court Conference, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, and the Wingspread Foundation. Her work has received funding from the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Commerce – NOAA Fisheries, Natural Resources Defense Council, the NorthLight Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of the Interior – Bureau of Land Management, Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, among others.
Associate Professor, Law
Environment Initiative Senior Faculty Fellow
gdotson@uoregon.edu
Greg Dotson is an Associate Professor of Law and a faculty member of the Environmental and Natural Resources (ENR) Law Center at the University of Oregon School of Law. Dotson teaches Environmental Law, Climate Change Law and Policy, and the Environmental Policy Practicum. In his role with the ENR Law Center, Dotson serves as the faculty advisor for the Energy Law and Policy Project. Dotson earned an undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Oregon School of Law.
After serving as the lead energy and environmental policy staffer for U.S. Representative Henry A. Waxman from 1996 to 2014, Dotson was invited back to Congress in 2021 as the Democratic Chief Counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. As Chief Counsel, Dotson has pioneered legislation including the Build Back Better Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. He continues to influence the Senate to take direct and swift action on the climate crisis and other environmental issues, all while connecting Oregon Law students to his policy work and empowering them to make sustainable change.
Erin Moore
Professor, Architecture
Associate Director, Environmental Studies Program
Environment Initiative Director of Academic Programs
moore2@uoregon.edu
Erin E. Moore is a professor in the Department of Architecture and in the Environmental Studies Program. Moore works in teaching, research and design practice on the environmental context of building construction and on the ways that buildings shape and reflect cultural constructions of nature. She uses her architecture practice FLOAT architectural research and design as a testing ground for designing with explicit intentions for the ecological context of buildings. Recent work explores the architectural space of fossil fuel consumption, biogenic carbon sequestration, and climate change.
In the face of serious global challenges, Moore believes that it is critical to develop aggressive, creative innovators who can connect the power of design with good science and rigorous ethical thinking. In her own teaching, Moore works to bring together processes of design and innovation with the science of sustainability in collaborations with chemists, ecologists, and biologists.
Moore is a graduate of the University of California-Berkeley (Master of Architecture) and of Smith College (BA, American Studies) and is a registered architect in Oregon and Arizona.
Alaí Reyes-Santos
Professor of Practice, Latinx, Law, Law-CRES
Environment Initiative Staff
alai@uoregon.edu
Alaí Reyes Santos is an independent scholar and consultant as well as a Professor of Practice at the University of Oregon School of Law. She is Associate Director of the Mellon-funded Pacific Northwest Just Futures Institute for Racial and Climate Justice (JFI). She founded ACC, a BIPOC-led consulting firm that approaches social and environmental justice and conflict resolution through community-grounded ancestral healing practices. She additionally serves on Oregon's Racial Justice Council's Environmental Equity Committee and as the co-director of non-profit Bohio Cibanani. Reyes-Santos is also an author published in diverse forms and venues; a renowned public speaker (check out her TEDxUOregon talk); and a founding member of the Oregon Water Futures Collaborative. A former Associate Professor with UO's Department of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies, Reyes-Santos holds a BA in Comparative Literature from University of Puerto Rico and an MA in Spanish and PhD in Literature from University of California, San Diego.
Reyes-Santos is collaborating with researchers on a digital humanities project centering traditional AfroIndigenous knowledge systems. Originally launched in 2020, "Caribbean Women Healers: Decolonizing Knowledge Within AfroIndigenous Traditions" showcases interviews with healers, ethnobotanical resources, and curriculum and biographical resources. Reyes-Santos is now reconceptualizing this work to include Indigenous and Black healers and traditional ecological knowledge keepers in the Pacific Northwest. Her current manuscripts-in-process propose a Black Diasporic approach to betrayals among kin emerging from racial, gender, and environmental violence. She is also working through the Oregon Water Futures Collaborative to address state-level water justice concerns through a legal framework.
Heather Brinton
Director, Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center and Pro Tem Instructor
Environment Initiative Staff
541-346-3845
hbrinton@uoregon.edu
Heather Brinton is the Director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center. She has co-taught Climate Law & Policy and currently teaches and is the faculty supervisor for the environmental law externships.
As ENR's Director, Brinton administers seven interdisciplinary projects: the Conservation Trust Project; the Energy Law and Policy Project; the Food Resiliency Project; the Global Environmental Democracy Project; the Native Environmental Sovereignty Project; the Oceans, Coast and Watersheds Project; and the Sustainable Land Use Project. All of these projects conduct research and analysis and provide innovative solutions to today's environmental problems.
Ms. Brinton began her career as judicial clerk to the Honorable Raymond R. Bagley in Clackamas County, Oregon. She went on to represent municipalities on land use, water, environmental, public utility and local governmental law at Hutchison, Hammond and Walsh in West Linn, Oregon. Just prior to joining the law school administration, Ms. Brinton litigated public interest environmental law cases as a staff attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene, Oregon.
Ms. Brinton is a graduate of the University of Oregon (J.D. 1996) and Sweet Briar College (A.B. 1992).
Jill Elizabeth
Environment Initiative Project Manager
541-346-3845
jillf@uoregon.edu
Jill Elizabeth serves as the Environment Initiative Project Manager at the UO. Prior to taking on this role, Jill managed the academic policies and operations for the School of Law’s four curricular programs – JD, LLM, CRES Master’s, and Legal Studies minor. As the delegate Director of Graduate Studies for the School of Law, Jill acted as the liaison between the Graduate School and the School of Law, promoting opportunities and connections for students across programs. For the past twenty years, her efforts have been dedicated both to furthering the excellence of the UO and to supporting the enrichment and success of the three fabulous humans under her care. Jill holds a MS in Educational Leadership and Policy from the UO and a BA in Philosophy and German from Calvin College.
Stephanie Bowers
Executive Assistant
541-346-2381
sbowers2@uoregon.edu
In her role as an executive assistant, Stephanie Bowers provides both administrative support to Executive Director Adell Amos and programmatic support to the Environment Initiative. Prior to joining our team at the University of Oregon, she worked for over seven years as an office manager in the private sector. A 2010 graduate from the UO, Stephanie holds a BA in Family and Human Services.