Rebecca Purdom is an environmental lawyer and legal educator who studies how people make sense of place and learning when confronted with changing conditions, contexts and technology. She has a J.D. and a masters in policy from Vermont Law School and an undergraduate degree in evolutionary biology. She has worked with communities in Brazil, East Africa, and across the US to develop innovative educational systems. In the process, she has examined how learners and communities respond to evolving pressures and how legal systems respond when innovative zeal or extraordinary circumstances exceed existing legal structures. She has served as a dean for graduate and innovative legal education programs at Vermont Law School and Emory University and as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of New Hampshire, and she has been visiting and consulting faculty in programs ranging from biochemistry at Stanford Medical School to International Law and Business at University de Metodista de Piracicaba in Brazil.
