The Environmental Institute announces the addition of two new associate directors to the leadership team: Leon Szeptycki and Moira O’Neill. Szeptycki and O’Neill join director Karen McGlathery and current associate director Andrés Clarens.

Szeptycki, professor of law, returns to his role after a brief hiatus. O’Neill, an associate professor of law, accepted the new role August 1.

“Interdisciplinary collaboration is at the center of Leon’s work on water and climate, and he brings a wealth of institutional knowledge and leadership back to EI,” said Karen McGlathery. “And Moira brings insight and experience in environmental policy, community engagement and public service, particularly in the context of climate and affordable housing.”

Szeptycki joined the law faculty in 2019 after serving as a professor of practice and executive director of Water in the West at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University, where he oversaw an interdisciplinary research program focused on water management in the American West. Szeptycki is an expert in water law and policy and has worked extensively on large-scale watershed restoration projects. 

Prior to joining the Woods Institute, Szeptycki served as the director of the Law School’s Environmental Law and Conservation Clinic, and as general counsel of Trout Unlimited, a national conservation organization. Early in his career, he also worked at the U.S. Department of Justice and practiced law at the Charlottesville office of McGuireWoods. In 2016, Szeptycki was appointed by California Gov. Jerry Brown to the board of the Klamath River Renewal Corp., a nonprofit organization that is implementing the removal of four hydropower dams on the Klamath River, the largest dam removal in the U.S. history.

O’Neill, who also previously held an appointment as associate professor of environmental and urban planning in the School of Architecture, teaches land use law, state and local government law, and housing policy courses. Her interdisciplinary research explores how state and local governments address climate change while also tackling spatial inequality. In California, O’Neill’s research supported the California Air Resources Board’s 2022 Scoping Plan for Achieving Carbon Neutrality (that implements the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act), and the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s first-ever Housing Policy and Practice Review of San Francisco.

Before joining UVA, O’Neill was an associate research scholar in the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. She previously taught land use law and state and local government law courses at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, UC Berkeley’s Department of City and Regional Planning and at Berkeley Law.

“Our leadership team at the Institute is an example of how multiple disciplines from the University convene to tackle some of the toughest climate and environmental challenges,” said McGlathery. “I am appreciative of the entire team at the Institute and how we work together to catalyze research and develop solutions that are transformative and have societal impact.”