Edward (Ted) Parson comes to UCLA School of Law from the University of Michigan, where he was the Joseph L. Sax Collegiate Professor of Law, as well as a Professor of Natural Resources & Environment, and a Professor of Public Policy.
Parson writes in the area of environmental governance and policy, with particular focus on international environmental issues, such as ozone depletion and climate change. He is a leading expert on climate change law and policy, and his book Protecting the Ozone Layer: Science and Strategy won the 2004 Harold and Margaret Sprout Award from the International Studies Association. His research has been highly influential in the drafting of the Montreal Protocol, the first international treaty to address the need to protect and reverse the damage to the ozone layer.
Professor Parson is a very productive interdisciplinary scholar whose articles have appeared in Nature, Science, Climatic Change, Issues in Science and Technology, Scientific American, the Journal of Economic Literature, and the Annual Review of Energy and the Environment. His most recent book is The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change, co-authored with University of Maryland Professor Andrew Dessler (2nd ed. Cambridge, 2010).
At Michigan, Professor Parson taught courses in negotiations, international environmental law & policy, and “Thinking Analytically for Policy & Decisions.” He also, as indicated above, plays a significant role in environmental policy: he has been a member of two different National Academy of Science Panels, chaired the U.S. Climate Change Science Program Expert Group on Scenarios for Global Climate Change Assessment, and was a member of the International Scientific Steering Committee of the International Human Dimensions Program on Global Change, Project on Industrial Transformation.
Parson earned his B.Sc. in Physics from University College, University of Toronto in 1975, an M.Sc. in Management Science from the University of British Columbia in 1981, and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University in 1992. Before joining Michigan’s faculty in 2003, Parson was a Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He has also been a professional classical musician, and has worked as an organizer of grassroots environmental groups.