5. Final Round Judges Bios

The Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University is proud to welcome the following distinguished members of the bench as Final Round Judges in this year’s Competition.

Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, Esq. Baker Botts, LLP

Alexandra (Alex) Dunn is a Partner in the Environmental, Safety, and Incident Response group at the international law firm of Baker Botts with 25 plus years of practice at the local, state, and federal levels of government. Alex brings to clients extensive institutional knowledge and a keen ability to help solve regulatory problems. Her deep relationships across the nation and reputation for transparency, fairness, and equity, make her an effective presence in the difficult settings. Alex largely works with major companies and national organizations on the regulation and management of emerging contaminants - particularly integrated per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFOS/PFAS) - on environmental justice and risk communication, chemical regulations, enforcement and compliance assistance, and risk communication.

From 2019-2021, with unanimous consent confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Alex served as Assistant Administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Overseeing 900 career staff, she was responsible for the creation of national policies implementing federal laws governing chemicals, pesticides, and pollution prevention. Prior, she was EPA Administrator for New England (Region 1) from 2018-2019, where she focused on watersheds, enforcement, and environmental justice.

Previously, Alex served as Executive Director and General Counsel of the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS), the national non-partisan association of U.S. state and territorial environmental commissioners. She held other dynamic positions in her career, including Executive Director and General Counsel of the Association of Clean Water Agencies (ACWA); Dean of Environmental Law Programs at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University; General Counsel of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies; and Counsel at the American Chemistry Council. Alex is a nationally known author on the topics of green cities, urban sustainability, environmental justice, and watershed management; she also has taught environmental justice at three law schools.

Alex serves on the Leadership Council of the Environmental Law Institute, the Board of Regents of the American College of Environmental Lawyers, and as a leader in the American Bar Association’s Section of Environment, Energy and Resources and on the Section of Litigation’s Environmental Litigation Committee.

Judge Mary Kay Lynch EPA Environmental Appeals Board

Judge Mary Kay Lynch is an Environmental Appeals Judge on U.S. EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board and has extensive litigation and management experience in both the private and public sector. She has served in several leadership positions within the EPA, including as the Associate General Counsel for the Waste and Emergency Response Law Office, leading the Agency’s participation in U.S. Supreme Court, federal Appellate Court and federal rule making practice in these subject areas. Prior to that she served as Regional Counsel for U.S. EPA Region 4 in Atlanta, Georgia. There she led a large interdisciplinary staff including attorneys and engineers to provide legal counsel for civil and criminal enforcement cases, defensive litigation, counseling issues, and general law matters. Judge Lynch has served as the Vice Chair of the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Trustee Council where she advised on complex and unprecedented issues. Prior to joining EPA, she was engaged in private law practice. Judge Lynch plays a leading role in the Board’s work on international judicial capacity building. Her work has been recognized with numerous awards including the Meritorious Presidential Rank Award, the EPA Excellence in Management Award and EPA Gold and Silver Medals. Judge Lynch earned a Juris Doctor degree, from the University of Georgia School of Law, where she served as the Executive Editor of the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law. She earned a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, from Boston College where she majored in history and was part of the Scholars of the College program.

Professor Miller began his legal career in the late 1960s as an associate in a Boston law firm, practicing business and finance law. In the early 1970s he joined the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its Boston regional office as an enforcement official, later moving to EPA's headquarters in Washington, DC, to head its water pollution permitting and enforcement program, to begin its hazardous waste enforcement program, and ultimately to head its national enforcement program. After a decade at EPA, he became a partner in a Washington, DC, law firm, practicing environmental law and representing corporate, non-profit, and governmental clients. In 1987, Professor Miller joined the Pace Law School faculty, teaching torts, constitutional law, criminal law/legal writing, and over a dozen environmental law courses. He served as the distinguished James D. Hopkins Chair in Law during the 1999–2001 academic years. He retired from teaching in 2013, and continued to work on the Law School’s National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition, now named in his honor. Professor Miller has lectured, taught, and consulted on environmental law throughout the country and in half a dozen foreign countries.