February 02, 2024

Professor Michele Okoh’s Forgotten Waters is Top 20 Article of the Year

Professor Michele Okoh’s article, entitled Forgotten Waters and published in the Georgetown Law Journal, has been selected as one of the top twenty articles of 2023 by the Environmental Law Reporter.

The Environmental Law Reporter (ELR) has selected Forgotten Waters, written by Professor Michele Okoh, as one of the top twenty environmental law articles of 2023.

ELR publishes the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review (ELPAR) in collaboration with Vanderbilt University Law School and the Environmental Law Institute (ELI). Every year, ELI senior staff, Vanderbilt law students and professors, and an expert advisory committee work together to research and identify the finest environmental law and policy articles. This year, ELPAR has selected Forgotten Waters as one of the top twenty articles published in 2023.

Professor Okoh is a criminal law, criminal procedure, and environmental justice scholar with numerous publications touching the intersection between criminal justice and public health. She is the 2021 recipient of the Rebecca A. Head Award, presented to an outstanding emerging leader in environmental justice, policy, and science, and her work has been published in the Georgetown Law Journal, the North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review, and the Florida International University Law Review, among others. Forgotten Waters, published in the Georgetown Law Journal in April of 2023, investigates the legacy of discrimination and environmental racism in access to safe drinking water and evaluates the Safe Drinking Water Act and Rural Electrification Act in connection with these issues.

In her career, Professor Okoh has enjoyed a wealth of professional experiences, including serving as a senior lecturing fellow for Duke Environmental & Policy Clinic, representing North Carolina as a prosecutor and attorney with the North Carolina Department of Justice, managing her own law firm, and working with the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. She currently serves as the section councilor for the Environment Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA) and represents both the Law Section and Environment Section on the Action Board of APHA.

To read Forgotten Waters, please visit Georgetown Law Journal’s April 2023 edition here.