Rachel Rothschild

Rachel Rothschild is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. She holds a J.D., cum laude, from NYU School of Law, where she was a Furman Academic Scholar, and a Ph.D. in the history of science and medicine from Yale University, where she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. She earned her B.A., magna cum laude, from Princeton University. Rothschild's scholarship sits at the intersection of environmental law, history, and policy. She is the author of Poisonous Skies: Acid Rain and the Globalization of Pollution (University of Chicago Press, 2019), and has written numerous articles and essays on pollution problems for academic journals and media outlets. Her recent research has examined the regulation of toxic substances, the history of the major questions doctrine, and the constitutionality of state climate superfund laws. In 2025, her article "The Origins of the Major Questions Doctrine" was selected as one of the top environmental law articles published in the previous year and she was named the Pace Haub School of Law Environmental Law Distinguished Junior Scholar.