Georgetown Law

Sara Colangelo is the Director of the Environmental Law & Justice Clinic and a Visiting Professor of Law. She is the 2020 recipient of the Georgetown Law Fahy Teaching Award. From 2015-2021 Professor Colangelo served as the Director of Georgetown’s Environmental Law and Policy Program, teaching multiple courses in environmental law. Her research focuses on environmental law and environmental justice, frequently with the use of multidisciplinary lenses to identify legal strategies to better serve communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harm and marginalized in decision-making processes. Professor Colangelo speaks at academic and professional conferences, appears in the media, and provides Congressional testimony on these topics. She is also a member of multiple boards and committees on environmental law and scholarship, science and health, and environmental justice.

Previously Professor Colangelo served as a trial attorney for the Environmental Enforcement Section (EES) of the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the Department of Justice for many years. She joined the Division through the Attorney General’s Honors Program. At EES, she managed complex civil environmental enforcement cases for pollution control and cleanup of hazardous waste sites to negotiated or litigated resolution, appearing on behalf of the United States in trials across the country. Professor Colangelo received multiple awards from the Environmental Protection Agency and from the Environment Division for her work. In addition, she was nominated for two awards from the Attorney General.

Professor Colangelo is a graduate of Georgetown Law, where she was a student in the Clinic she now directs. She also served as research assistant to Professor Richard Lazarus and was a member of the Georgetown International Environmental Law Review. She holds a B.A. from Brown University, where she graduated magna cum laude, was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and received the William Gaston Premium Scholarship.