Kristen van de Biezenbos

Kristen van de Biezenbos is an associate professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary, cross-appointed with the Haskayne School of Business. She joined the University of Calgary in 2017. She earned her J.D. magna cum laude from Tulane University School of Law, serving as Senior Notes and Comments Editor of the Tulane Law Review and interning for the Honorable Judge Lance Africk at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. She also holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans and a B.A. with honors in English and Anthropology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Prior to her appointment at Calgary, she taught at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and Texas Tech University School of Law, and served as Westerfield Fellow at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law from 2013 to 2015. Before entering academia, she maintained a mixed transactional and litigation practice in New Orleans focused on offshore energy, maritime law, and international law.

Her research interests center on energy law, environmental law, and sustainability, particularly the community-level impacts of energy projects, environmental justice, electricity law, transmission planning, and the legal dimensions of deep decarbonization. Notable publications include "The Case Against Regional Transmission Monopolies," 101 Washington University Law Review 69 (2023); "Lost in Transmission: A Constitutional Approach to Achieving a Nationwide Net Zero Electricity System," 59 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 629 (2022); "The Rebirth of Social Licence," 14 McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law 157 (2019); "Contracted Fracking," 92 Tulane Law Review 587 (2018); and contributions to the Palgrave Handbook on Social License to Operate and Energy Transitions (2022) and the World Handbook on Energy Law (2020). She received the 2023 Teaching Excellence Award from the Energy & Environmental Engineering Students Society at the University of Calgary. Van de Biezenbos serves on the Board of Advisory Editors for the Tulane Law Review and the Loyola Maritime Law Journal and was a former trustee of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation. Her scholarship has been cited by the Canadian Climate Institute, and she has contributed op-eds to CBC.ca and intelligence memos for the CD Howe Institute.

Professional Email: kristen.vandebiezenb@ucalgary.ca