Autumn Bordner is a Research Fellow in ocean law and policy at CLEE and the Law of the Sea Institute. Her work focuses on both international and domestic ocean issues, including California offshore wind development and improving the governance regime for marine scientific research under the U.N. Convention for the Law of the Sea.

Dr. Dai has played a significant role leading California’s collaboration with China on climate, energy and environment. She was appointed by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr as Special Advisor on China. Under Brown, Dr. Dai chaired the state’s China Interagency Working Group, and acted as the state’s liaison on its critical economic and environmental initiatives on China. Previously, Dr. Dai served as senior advisor at California Environmental Protection Agency and California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, advising on the state’s international policy and global climate partnership. In 2017, she organized Governor Brown’s trip, which resulted in a successful meeting with President Xi Jinping and the commitment to establish the California-China Climate Institute.

Dr. Dai is a graduate of Berkeley Law, University of California, and holds a doctoral degree on Environmental Policy and Economics from State University of New York. Her research has been focused on market mechanisms for climate change mitigation, energy efficiency and innovations.

Patrick Heller is an advisor at NRGI and a senior visiting fellow at the Center on Law, Energy and Environment (CLEE) at the University of California, Berkeley. He has worked on legal reform and governance initiatives in the developing world for more than 15 years for organizations including USAID, the U.S. State Department, the Asian Development Bank, Creative Associates International and The International Center for Transitional Justice.

Patrick’s work focuses on the governance of state-owned oil and mining companies and the analysis of extractive industry institutions, contracts and legislation. He contributes extensively to NRGI’s programs of technical assistance to governments and civil society organizations throughout the world, and to NRGI’s capacity development efforts. He has facilitated courses on oil, gas and mining legal frameworks with partner institutions including the University of Oxford (U.K.), Columbia University (U.S.), Gadjah Mada University (Indonesia), the Catholic University of Central Africa (Cameroon) and Externado University (Colombia).

At CLEE, Patrick is researching pathways to sustainability for fossil fuel-producing countries, including tools for governments to better account for uncertainties from climate change as they make long-term economic plans. He is also examining methodologies for incorporating measurements of environmental risks into decisions about whether to proceed with new oil or mining projects.

He holds a law degree from Stanford University and a master’s in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Charles R. Corbett is an Emmett Climate Engineering Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law for 2019-2021. His research focuses on climate change and environmental policy. He has clerked previously with Earthjustice, Clean Air Task Force, and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Corbett received his B.A. magna cum laude from New York University, and his J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was awarded the T.A. Barron Environmental Fellowship.

Benjamin Harris is the Shapiro Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law for 2019-2021. He previously clerked for the Honorable Stephen V. Wilson for the United States District Court in the Central District of California and was a litigation associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP.

Harris received his B.S. cum laude in Marine Biology with Departmental Honors and College Honors from UCLA. He returned to obtain a J.D. from UCLA School of Law, where he received the Shepard Broad Award and was a Michael T. Masin Scholar. He also served as the Executive Editor for the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law and Policy.