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- Professor of Law
- Faculty of Laws
- UCL SLASH
Maria joined UCL as a Professorof Law in 2007, and was director and co-director of the UCL Centrefor Law and the Environment for over a decade. She has been a memberof the editorial committees of a number of journals, including the ModernLaw Review and the Environmental Law Review and (currently) the Journal of EnvironmentalLaw, and the advisory committee of Transnational Environmental Law.
She was a member of the ExecutiveCommittee of the Society of Legal Scholars until 2021, and continues to chair their Research Grants Committee.
Maria was a member of the RoyalCommission on Environmental Pollution 2009-2011, and of Greener UK’s Brexit ScenariosGroup 2016-2020.
Maria taught previously at King's College London and at theUniversity of Central Lancashire.


Maria's research interests lie in the law and policy of environmental protection. She is particularly interested in the ways we make decisions on environmental matters, including in areas of high technological complexity and controversy. She concentrates on the governance of decision making, examining the ways in which law implicates issues like the use of expertise or public participation.
Maria is currently pursuing these ideas in two key areas: the ways in which environmental groups use legal expertise, on which she recently published a co-authored monograph; and in planning law, on which she is currently co-editing a collection. Maria has also been working on the implications of Brexit for environmental law.
Maria teachestort law and environmental law at undergraduate level, and contributes to arange of modules on the UCLLLM in environmental law and policy. She led the creation and development of the Faculty’s innovativeinduction programme for new undergraduates, Laws’ Connections: Legal Doctrineand Contemporary Challenges, as well as the Climate Change case study onthat module.
Maria Lee has supervised PhDs on a range of areas of environmental law, riskregulation and tort.
2018 | ATQ04 - Recognised by the HEA as a Senior Fellow | University College London | |
1994 | Certificate | College of Law, London | |
1993 | Master of Laws | The College of Europe | |
1992 | Bachelor of Arts | University of Nottingham |