Ann Eisenberg

Courses Taught

• Energy Law
• Property Law
• Law and the Urban/Rural Divide

Biography

Ann Eisenberg joined the faculty at West Virginia University College of Law as a Professor of Law and Research Director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development in 2023. Her research examines questions of law and sustainability, with particular emphasis on rural development, property, energy law, and local government. Her book, Reviving Rural America: Toward Policies for Resilience, was published with Cambridge University Press in 2024 and received the College of Law’s 2025 Faculty Significant Scholarship Award. Her scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the UC Davis Law Review, the University of Colorado Law Review, the Harvard Law Review Forum, the Harvard Law and Policy Review, the Southern California Law Review, and elsewhere.

Before joining the WVU faculty, Professor Eisenberg was on the faculty of the University of South Carolina School of Law from 2016 to 2023, where she created and ran the transactional Environmental Law Clinic. During that time, she also held a seven-month residency as a Fellow at the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, where she conducted original archival research on the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. Eisenberg was also selected through a competitive process to give a TEDx talk, “Reviving Rural America.” Professor Eisenberg is actively engaged in interdisciplinary work and is currently part of two research teams of law professors and geographers funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to study justice in energy transitions.

Eisenberg holds a J.D. from Cornell Law School, cum laude, an LL.M. in Energy and Sustainable Development from WVU Law, and a B.A. in Linguistics and French Cultural Studies from Cornell University. She is a member of the New York Bar and served in the Peace Corps in Morocco. Her website can be found at www.anneisenberg.com.

Publications and Research

• Clean Energy and Enclosure, 97 Col. L. Rev. 557 (2026)
• Extracting Clean Energy, 59 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1423 (2026)
• Environmental Geography and Law: Towards a Synthesis, 99 Tulane L. Rev. (2025) (with Anang-Hadjicostandi, Borgias, Bork, Carlarne, Franco, Hirokawa, London, Morgan, Owley, Roesler, & Ziaja)
• Reviving Rural America: Toward Policies for Resilience (Cambridge 2024)
• The Geography of Unfreedom, 12 Mich. L. Rev. 1049 (2023) (invited book review)
• Rural America as a Commons, 57 U. Rich. L. Rev. 769 (2023) (invited symposium keynote)

Education

• LL.M., Energy and Sustainable Development Law, West Virginia University College of Law, 2014
• J.D., Cornell Law School, cum laude, 2012
• B.A., Linguistics and French Cultural Studies, Cornell University, 2006