Catherine O’Neill

Environmental Scholar & Adjunct Professor of Law, Lewis & Clark Law School

Catherine’s work focuses on issues of environmental law, policy, and justice – particularly as these affect the rights of tribes and indigenous peoples. She recently served as a Habitat Policy Analyst for the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. She has taught at the University of Washington, the University of Arizona, and Seattle University, where she was a Professor of Law and a Faculty Fellow with the Center for Indian Law & Policy. She is currently an Environmental Scholar & Adjunct Professor of Law at Lewis & Clark Law School. She is also a Member Scholar with the Center for Progressive Reform, a non-profit group of university-affiliated professors that seeks to inform debate on environmental, health, and safety regulation. Catherine has served as an external advisor or consultant to numerous tribes and intertribal organizations, the National Tribal Toxics Council, and the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC). She has twice testified before Congress on the harms of mercury contamination. Catherine has published numerous articles and book chapters, including Exposed:  Asking the Wrong Question in Risk Regulation (Arizona State Law Journal, 2016); Fishable Waters (American Indian Law Journal, 2013); No Mud Pies:  Risk Avoidance as Risk Regulation (Vermont Law Review, 2007); and Mercury, Risk, and Justice (Environmental Law Reporter, 2004). She was a Ford Foundation Fellow at Harvard Law School, and holds degrees from the University of Chicago School of Law and the University of Notre Dame.