Shelley Welton

Faculty

Shelley Welton is a Presidential Distinguished Professor of Law and Energy Policy with the Kleinman Center and Penn Carey Law. Welton previously was an Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law. Welton was a 2021-2022 Kleinman Center Visiting Scholar.

Her research focuses on how climate change is transforming energy and environmental law and governance. Her scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the California Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, New York University Law Review, University of Colorado Law Review, and Harvard Environmental Law Review, among other journals. At the University of South Carolina, she teaches Administrative Law, Energy Law, Environmental Law and Policy, and Climate Change Law.  

Prior to academia, Professor Welton worked as the Deputy Director of Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. She also clerked for Judge David Trager of the Eastern District of New York and Judge Allyson Duncan of the Fourth Circuit. She received her Ph.D. in Law from Yale Law School, her J.D. from NYU School of Law, a Master of Public Administration in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and her B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

“I look forward to collaborating across the University to enhance Penn’s leadership in climate and energy scholarship, policymaking, and education.”

Shelley Welton