Office Details
Administrative Assistant: Tiffany Ralph, 410.837.4561
John and Frances Angelos Law Center, Room 1112
Education
Ph.D., University of Arizona, School of Geography and Development
M.Sc., University of Oxford, School of Geography and Development
J.D., University of California College of the Law, San Francisco
B.A., University of Michigan
Areas of Expertise
Environmental Law
Climate Change
Water Governance
Energy Regulation
Property
Biography
Sonya Ziaja is an assistant professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. She teaches Environmental Law; Climate Adaptation, Law and Equity; Water Law; Energy Law; Administrative Law; and Property. Before coming to University of Baltimore, she worked in energy regulation at the California Public Utilities Commission and was the research lead for the Water, Energy, Climate Nexus at the California Energy Commission. She is a recipient of the 2024-2025 Pace .
Ziaja’s research interests focus on the overlapping areas of environmental governance and law, technology and society: How can environmental law and institutions sustainably adjust to rapidly changing bio-geophysical conditions and societal demands associated with climate change? And with what consequences for equity and democratic participation? Her approach to these questions draws on her interdisciplinary background in geography, water governance, as well as her practical knowledge of energy regulation.
Ziaja’s scholarship has appeared in Georgetown Law Journal, Ecology Law Quarterly, and Arizona State Law Journal, among other law reviews and peer reviewed journals. Her article, “How Algorithm Assisted Decision Making Is Influencing Environmental Law and Climate Adaptation” was chosen by peer review as among the top five leading environmental and natural resources law articles in 2022 and was selected to appear, condensed and reprinted, in the 2023 Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review.
Ziaja holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Arizona, M.Sc. in Water Science, Policy and Management from the University of Oxford, and J.D. from the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco.
Sonya Ziaja, Of Climate Justice and Magical Realism, 124 Mich. L. Rev. (2025).
Sonya Ziaja, Environmental Geography and Law: Towards a Synthesis, 99.4 Tul. L. Rev. 811 (2025).
Sonya Ziaja, Secret Lives of Environmental Rights, 41.2 Pace Env’t L. Rev. 345 (2024) (invited to symposium issue).
Sonya Ziaja, Amoral Water Markets, 111.6 Geo. L. J. 1335 (2023) (with Karrigan Bork).
Sonya Ziaja, How Algorithm Assisted Decision Making Is Influencing Climate Adaptation and Environmental Law, 53 Env’t L. & Pol’y Ann. Rev. 10652 (2023) (selected as one of the top 5 environmental law articles of 2021-2022, appears as an abridged reprint of the earlier ELQ version).
Keith Hirokawa, Cinnamon Carlarne, Karrigan Bork, & Sonya Ziaja, Mapping Ecosystem Benefits Flows to Normalize Equity, 54.3 Ariz. State L. Rev. 819 (2023) (selected for inclusion in the list of Top 20 articles selected for the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review (ELPAR), a joint publication of the Environmental Law Institute’s Environmental Law Reporter and Vanderbilt University Law School).