jgellers

"While law is an inescapable facet of life, the motivations behind certain laws and the degree to which they are enforced vary widely. I am interested in understanding why and how people use law to protect their rights and the environment in which they inhabit. Indeed, the very future of our planet will depend on how capable legal systems are of addressing important environmental issues at every level of governance."

Josh is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Florida, an M.A. in Climate and Society from Columbia University, and an M.A. in Political Science from UCI. Josh has served as a researcher for the Global Roundtable on Climate Change (GROCC), Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED), and Earth Institute at Columbia University, and has interned at the U.S. Department of Commerce, City of Irvine, City of Long Beach, and EcoMedia, a CBS company. Josh has published work in International Environmenta lAgreements and the Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation.

Josh first became interested in environmental issues while growing up in South Florida, where hurricanes served as a regular reminder of nature's destructive potential. After college he attended graduate school at Columbia University to gain a better scientific understanding of climate change and its impacts throughout the world. Josh's focus on the environment and background in social science coalesced when he enrolled in Prof. Joseph DiMento's Environmental Law course. Inspired by the power of the law to regulate human behavior and safeguard the environment, his current research examines why countries adopt environmental rights in their national constitutions. Josh's dissertation includes a global statistical analysis of constitutional environmental rights, and has taken him to Nepal and Sri Lanka, where he has conducted in-depth case study analyses.