Sara Bronin

Sara Bronin is a Professor at the Cornell School of Art, Architecture, and Planning, an Associate Member of the Cornell Law School Faculty, a Professor in the Rubacha Department of Real Estate, a Faculty Fellow of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, and the Director of the Legal Constructs Lab.  Her interdisciplinary research focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected places.

As a leading voice on historic preservation law and related land use practices, Bronin was recently confirmed by unanimous consent in the U.S. Senate to serve as the 12th Chair of the U.S. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP). She will be on a public service leave from Cornell for the duration of her federal service. The council advises the president and congress on decisions and policies that promote the preservation and enhancement of national historic resources.

In addition to her books and treatises on land use and historic preservation law, she has written over two dozen articles on renewable energy, climate change, housing, urban planning, transportation, real estate development, and federalism. She also serves as the lead author of the land use volume of the forthcoming Restatement (Fourth) of Property. Through the Legal Constructs Lab, she created the National Zoning Atlas to translate and standardize tens of thousands of zoning codes across the country. Her book, Key to the City, under contract with W.W. Norton Press, will explore how zoning shapes our lives.

Professor Bronin has taught at the Yale School of Architecture and the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), and has been a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Kleinman Center on Energy Policy and the Sorbonne.  Among other scholarly service, Bronin is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a past chair of the State & Local Government Section of the American Association of Law Schools.

Active in public service, Professor Bronin has served as an advisor for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Sustainable Development Code, a board member of Latinos in Heritage Conservation, and the Chair of Preservation Connecticut.  As the founder of Desegregate Connecticut, she led a coalition that successfully supported the adoption of the first major zoning reforms in Connecticut in several decades. Previously, she led the nationally-recognized efforts of the City of Hartford to adopt a climate action plan and city plan, and to overhaul the zoning code.