Ted Parson

Edward A. (Ted) Parson is Dan and Rae Emmett Professor of Environmental Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the University of California, Los Angeles. Parson studies international environmental law and policy, the role of science and technology in policy-making, and the political economy of regulation. His articles have appeared in Science, Nature, Climatic Change, Issues in Science and Technology, the Journal of Economic Literature, and the Annual Review of Energy and the Environment. His most recent books are The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change (with Andrew Dessler) (2nd ed. Cambridge, 2010), and Protecting the Ozone Layer: Science and Strategy (Oxford, 2003), which won the 2004 Sprout Award of the International Studies Association and is widely recognized as the authoritative account of the development of international cooperation to protect the ozone layer. 

Parson has led and served on multiple advisory committees, for the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and other national and international bodies. He was formerly Joseph L. Sax Collegiate Professor of Law, Professor of Natural Resources and Environment, and Professor of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, and spent twelve years on the faculty of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. In addition to his academic positions, Parson has worked and consulted for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress, the Privy Council Office of the Government of Canada, the U.N. Environment Program, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). He holds degrees in physics from the University of Toronto and in management science from the University of British Columbia, and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard. In former lives, he was a professional classical musician and an organizer of grass-roots environmental groups. 

Dr. Parson has been a valued member of our CFGS community for over a decade. His position is closely interconnected to his regular summer residency as well as his choice to spend two sabbatical years at the University of Victoria to support research, outreach and facilitate ongoing collaborations with colleagues and students.