S.J.D. Candidate
fzhao at sjd.law.harvard.edu
Dissertation
The Law and Political Economy of Chemical Health Risk Regulation
Toxic harm caused by anthropogenic chemicals is a growing catastrophic risk. Each year, pollution causes 9 million premature deaths, surpassing the number of all deaths from war, terrorism, malaria, HIV, tuberculosis, drugs, and alcohol combined. Progress made in reducing deaths from household air and water pollution are offset by the increase in deaths from toxic chemical pollution and ambient air pollution. Deaths aside, disease burdens associated with chemical exposure—in the forms of developmental neurotoxicity, reproductive toxicity, and immunotoxicity, etc.—are grave concerns. Even more troubling is the fact that these empirical findings are most likely underestimations, since the current rate of generating chemical health and safety information is far too low. This hole in our knowledge will almost certainly grow larger because of the interrelated issue of the accelerating rate of chemical production. Environmental scientists warned with great urgency that the current pace of producing and releasing anthropogenic chemicals and other materials—collectively called “novel entities”—has outstripped the global human society’s regulatory capacity and exceeded the planetary boundary.
In this project, I will first examine the dynamic of information production in the chemical sector of the United States that led to this current state of affairs and then proceed to evaluate the different legal/regulatory options that can better incentivize the generation of chemical health and safety data.
Fields of Research and Supervisors
- Law and Political Economy with Professor Yochai Benkler, Harvard Law School, Principal Faculty Supervisor
- Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy with Professor William W. Fisher, Harvard Law School
- Administrative Law and the Regulatory State with Professor Ryan D. Doerfler, Harvard Law School
- Environmental Law and Risk Regulation with Professor William Boyd, UCLA School of Law
Additional Research Interests
- Social Theory
- Political Philosophy
- Economics of Risk
- History of Legal Thought
- Property
Education
- Harvard Law School, S.J.D. Candidate, 2025-Present
- Harvard Law School, LL.M. Program 2024-2025 (requirements fulfilled, degree waived)
- University of Victoria, Canada, J.D. 2024
Additional Information
- Languages: English, Chinese
Last Updated: June 13, 2025