Faculty Profile: Wendy E Wagner
Main Profile Content
Featured Work
Cambridge University Press

INCOMPREHENSIBLE!: A study of how our legal system encourages incomprehensibility, why it matters, and what we can do about it
Biography
Professor Wagner is a leading authority on the use of science by environmental policy-makers. She received a Masters of Environmental Studies in 1984 and her law degree in 1987, both from Yale, where she was Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal and Managing Editor of the Yale Journal of Regulation. Before entering teaching, she practiced for four years, first as an Honors Attorney in the Enforcement Division of the Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division, and then as Pollution Control Coordinator with the Department of Agriculture's Office of the General Counsel. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Texas, Professor Wagner taught at Case Western Law School and was a visiting professor at Columbia and Vanderbilt Law Schools.
Prof. Wagner’s research focuses on the intersection of law and science, with particular attention to environmental policy. Among her publications, “Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research,” a 2009 book Wagner co-authored with UT colleague, Tom McGarity, received the Hamilton Grand Prize for the best book published at UT in 2009. "Dynamic Rulemaking" (with Bill West, Tom McGarity, and Lisa Peters) was awarded the 2018 American Bar Association Award for Scholarship in Administrative Law. Several other articles ("The Science Charade in Toxic Risk Regulation”, "Equal Treatment for Regulatory Science" (co-authored with David Michaels), and “Misunderstanding Models” (co-authored with Pasky Pascual and Liz Fisher)) were chosen as one of the best environmental law articles of the year and reprinted in the Land Use and Environmental Law Review. Two other articles (“Information Capture and Filter Failure” and “Competition-based Regulation”) were selected for publication in the ELI-Vanderbilt Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review as among the top articles of the year.
Prof. Wagner has served on several National Academies of Science Committees, the Bipartisan Policy Center Committee on Regulatory Science, and served as a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the U.S. (ACUS) on a project on the agencies’ use of science. Wagner has also served on the governing councils of the ABA Administrative Law Section, the National Conference of Scientists and Lawyers (AAAS-ABA Committee), and the Society for Risk Analysis. Wagner is a Member Scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform.
Most Recent Media
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Professional Activities
2019
June 10, 2019
Administrative Law New Scholarship Roundtable
University of Wisconsin School of Law
April 11, 2019
Environmental Law Seminar Series
UCLA Law School
April 2, 2019
Law and Economics Workshop
University of Bonn, Germany
February 21, 2019
Faculty Colloquia
University of Virginia School of Law
February 21, 2019
Duke Law Journal Symposium on Deregulation
Duke Law School
2018
March 8, 2018
Invitational workshop on empirical research on administrative law
University of Wisconsin
2017
December 15, 2017
Conference on “Industry Influence in Financial Regulation”
Harvard University, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies
March 17, 2017
Conference on Science and Evidence
Columbia University
March 3, 2017
Faculty Colloquia
Northwestern Law School
Winter 2017
Panel on Science and Environmental Law
Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference;
February 9, 2017
Seminar on Interest Groups
Vanderbilt Law School
Winter 2017
Faculty Colloquia
Cornell Law School
2016
Fall 2016
Conference on Tort Law and Innovation
Heidelberg University, Germany
Spring 2016
Conference on Public Participation in Administrative Law
University of Paris Law School Pantheon-Sorbonne
Spring 2016
Faculty Colloquia
University of Minnesota School of Law