Published: March 25, 2022

Today we share some bittersweet news. At the end of the spring semester, three of our extraordinary faculty will depart Colorado Law for their next exciting chapters. Here, we are pleased to celebrate their many achievements and wish them our very best.

Professor Ming Hsu Chen:

Portrait of Professor Chen in front of a bookcaseProfessor Ming Hsu Chen came to the University of Colorado Law School in 2011. From the beginning of her tenure at Colorado Law, she has brought a unique, interdisciplinary perspective to her teaching and scholarship, having held appointments in law, political science, and ethnic studies. Professor Chen founded the Immigration and Citizenship Law Program as Faculty-Director and served as faculty-advisor to the Chancellor's Immigration Task Force, Immigration Law and Policy Society, and APALSA. Profesor Chen served as a member of the Colorado Advisory Committee to U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 2016-2021.Her contributions were recognized with the Calhoun Public Service Award in 2017 and a Gordon Gamm Justice Award for Faculty Scholarship in 2015. Her students and fellow faculty alike are honored to engage with Professor Chen in the study of race, immigration, and the administrative state.

“The University of Colorado has provided me a place to define myself as a scholar, and it has provided meaningful opportunities to build a community of interdisciplinary race and immigration scholars across the university,” remarked Professor Chen. “The Front Range has become a dynamic place for immigrants and racial diversity. I'm glad to have played a small part in its transformation."

Professor Chen will join the faculty at the UC Hastings College of Law, where she has been serving as a visiting professor for the 2021-22 school year. She continues in her position as co-editor for the Immigration Prof blog (@immprof) and in leadership roles for the AALS Immigration Law section and the Law and Society Association's Citizenship and Migration section.

Professor Chen's book, Pursuing Citizenship in the Enforcement Era, was the subject of the Byron R. White Center's Rothgerber Symposium in 2021 and a TEDxMileHigh Talk in 2020.  Prior to joining the legal academy, Professor Chen clerked for the Honorable James R. Browning on the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. She earned degrees from the University of California Berkeley (Ph.D 2011), New York University Law School (JD 2004), and Harvard College (AB 2000)."

Professor Sharon Jacobs:

Portrait of Professor Jacobs in front of a white backgroundProfessor Sharon Jacobs has been a highly esteemed presence at Colorado Law since she joined the faculty in 2014. She is an Associate Professor and the John H. Schultz Energy and Natural Resources Law Fellow at Colorado Law and serves as a board member of the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment. At the conclusion of the Spring semester, Professor Jacobs will be joining the faculty at The University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

“The thing I will miss most about Colorado Law is our remarkable student body,” reflected Professor Jacobs. “The enthusiasm our students show for the law, and the care they show to one another, inspire all of us to do our best work. I am also grateful for the support of my fellow faculty, and for their generosity of spirit and tireless commitment to the scholarly project.”

Professor Jacobs's research focuses on the impact of regulatory structure and process on policy outcomes in energy and environmental law at the federal and state levels. In 2017 Jacobs earned the Haub Environmental Law Distinguished Junior Scholar Award, which recognizes an emerging junior environmental law professor who exhibits scholarly excellence and promise at an early stage in his/her career. In 2020, Professor Jacobs began administering and overseeing a new website, EnergyTradeoffs.com, a website that publishes scholarly treatments of the energy transition and fosters nuanced, constructive dialogue around that transition.

She was previously a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and an associate in the energy and environmental regulatory groups at Covington & Burling LLP in Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Columbia Law Review, and Iowa Law Review, among other publications. Professor Jacobs graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2009, where she was the Executive Articles Editor of the Harvard Law and Policy Review. Prior to attending law school, Professor Jacobs was a professional classical cellist and holds a master’s degree in Music Performance from the Juilliard School and a bachelor's degree in Music Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Susan Nevelow Mart:

Professor Nevelow Mart presenting behind a wooden lecternBeloved professor and director of the William A. Wise Law Library, Susan Nevelow Mart will retire at the end of the 2021-22 school year.

Since she joined the Colorado Law faculty in July of 2011, Professor Mart has been a source of great wisdom and collegiality in the community. She has written and presented nationally and locally on the effects of algorithms on legal research, legal information policy, national security and libraries, access to information, computer information retrieval systems, and legal research pedagogy.

“Law Librarianship has been my favorite career,” remarked Professor Mart.  “And the support of the faculty and staff at Colorado Law has been a major part of making my career as a law librarian so enjoyable. I am proud to be part of the Colorado Law community.”

In 2004, 2007, and 2018, her superior scholarship received the Article of the Year Award from the Law Library Journal, law librarianship's premier journal. She currently teaches Writing and Research in the Regulatory Context, Advanced Legal Research and Analysis and Environmental Legal Research. She has been on the Board of Directors of LawArXiv, the Society of American Law Library Directors, and the Legal Information Preservation Alliance. She serves as the Chair of the Government Relations Committee of the Colorado Association of Law Libraries and is active in advocating on information policy issues on behalf of libraries and the public.

Before joining Colorado Law, Professor Mart served as the Faculty Services Librarian and adjunct professor of law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Prior to her work at Hastings, Professor Mart practiced law for seventeen years. Professor Mart holds an M.L. I.S. from San Jose State University, a J.D. from Berkeley Law School at the University of California at Berkeley, and a B.A. from the University of California at Santa Cruz.