Wendy E. Wagner

Professor Wagner is a leading authority on the use of science by environmental policy-makers. She received a Masters of Environmental Studies and her law degree, 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 clerked for the Honorable Albert Engel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She then practiced law for four years, first as an Honors Attorney in the Civil Enforcement Section of the Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division, and then as the 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 design of administrative process, with particular attention to environmental policy and science-intensive regulations. She has published more than six dozen articles and book chapters and three books on a wide range of topics. Her work has won multiple awards, including the Hamilton Grand Prize for the best book published at UT in 2009 ("Bending Science" with Tom McGarity) and the 2018 American Bar Association Award for Scholarship in Administrative Law ("Dynamic Rulemaking" with Tom McGarity, Bill West and Lisa Peters).

Prof. Wagner has served or is serving on several National Academies of Science Committees, the Bipartisan Policy Center Committee on Regulatory Science, the National Conference of Scientists and Lawyers (AAAS-ABA Committee), the Administrative New Scholarship Roundtable, and as a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the U.S. (ACUS) on a project on the agencies’ use of science. Wagner also served on governing councils of the ABA Administrative Law Section and the Society for Risk Analysis. She is a Member Scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform.