Annie Brett

Professor of Law
Director, Program in Law and Government

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Annie Brett is a Professor of Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where she teaches in the areas of property, environmental and oceans law, and law and technology. She is the co-author of Oceans and Coastal Law, the leading casebook in the field. Her scholarship spans environmental law, ocean and water law, admiralty, and the governance of emerging technologies, with a particular focus on how law can be designed to manage resources and risks in rapidly evolving environments. Her work has appeared in the California Law Review, the Penn Law Review, the Harvard Environmental Law Review, and Nature, among other leading law reviews and peer-reviewed scientific outlets.

Professor Brett is regularly engaged as an advisor and advocate on some of the most novel questions in ocean and environmental law, spanning regulatory design for emerging industries, deep-sea resource governance, and complex admiralty litigation including shipwreck cases. She has served on multiple committees for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, including the U.S. National Committee to the U.N. Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, and brings a rare combination of legal and scientific expertise to complex regulatory questions facing government agencies, industry, and international bodies.

One of the youngest women ever to work as a commercial vessel captain, Professor Brett has sailed extensively across multiple ocean basins, participated in National Geographic-funded expeditions, and continues to lead scientific and legal voyages. Prior to joining UF Law, she spearheaded international ocean policy initiatives at Stanford University and the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. She holds an A.B. from Harvard University and a J.D. and Ph.D. (Ecosystem Science and Policy) from the University of Miami.