Biography
Mary Zhao is an Assistant Professor of Law at the College of Law. Her research is in intellectual property law, with an emphasis on the application of intellectual property law to solving climate change issues. Her work examines how legal doctrines and social preferences influence each other in the context of climate change mitigation. Her scholarship has appeared in the Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts, the Boston College Law Review, the Rutgers University Law Review, and the Virginia Journal of International Law.
Professor Zhao received her J.D. from Stanford Law School and her M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University. She received her B.Sc. in environmental science, summa cum laude, from Cornell University. Before joining academia, Professor Zhao worked at Covington & Burling, where she represented clients in intellectual property litigation and complex commercial litigation.
Publications
- Green Marks and Mismatched Meanings, 66 B.C. L. Rev. 915 (2025)
- Morals in Place of Markets: Courts’ Approach to Post-Sale Confusion, 75 Rutgers L. Rev. 927 (2023)
- Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform: Reconsidering the Multilateral Investment Court in the Context of Disputes Involving Intellectual Property, 44 Colum. J.L. & Arts 545 (2021)
- Transparency in International Commercial Arbitration: Adopting a Balanced Approach, 59 Va. J. Int’l L. 177 (2019)
- Short and Long Term Flammability of Biochars, 9 J. Biomass Bioenergy 183 (with Akio Enders & Johannes Lehmann) (2014)
Education
- J.D., Stanford Law School
- M.S. (Electrical Engineering), Stanford University
- B.Sc. (Environmental Science, minor in Physics), Cornell University