Third Diehl Environmental Law Fellows Announced

Lewis & Clark Law School is the recipient of a bequest from John E. Diehl who was an active environmentalist in Washington. The Diehl bequest supports a fellowship program for Lewis & Clark Law School graduates who are planning to work in public interest environmental law. It specifically has a preference for graduates who are “dedicated to resource conservation, wilderness and wildlife habitat and preservation, or human population stabilization.”

This years fellows are:

Pegga Mosavi ’22

 Pegga’s passion for environmental advocacy began from a young age - she “grew up with her hands in the dirt, tending to animals and working on her family farm.” Growing up on the farm instilled a deep love for the environment for Pegga, as well as a “fierce passion to protect it.” She is specially interested in agriculture and food and wants to “dedicate her life to making our food and agricultural systems more sustainable and protective of the environment.” Before attending Lewis & Clark Law, she went to the University of Rochester in upstate New York, where she studied sustainable agriculture, worked with community gardens, and explored public health. She also took an environmental law course, which was where her interest in environmental law took off.

While at Lewis & Clark, Pegga has worked as a project coordinator for the Food and Agriculture Group of the Northwest Environmental Defense Center (NEDC), and has also been involved in the Earthrise Law Clinic at the law school, and the Center for Food Safety. After graduation, with the help of the Diehl Fellowship, Pegga will be working with the Center for Food Safety as an Environmental Litigator. Topics for Pegga to tackle will include: genetic engineering, pesticides, animal factories, aquaculture, and organic integrity.

The significance of the Diehl fellowship was not lost on her, as she stated that she “came to law school wanting to pursue food and agriculture legal work, and to see that dream become a reality is humbling to say the least.” She is “immensely grateful for the Diehl Fellowship and the opportunity it has given her.”

Chelsea Stewart-Fusek ’22

Much Like Pegga, Chelsea’s interest in the environment stemmed from her childhood. She was born in the “beautiful but economically depressed Humboldt County” in Northern California, and spent much of her childhood exploring the woods, streams, and cow pastures that surrounded her. From an early age this motivated Chelsea to spend her life “working to conserve the wildlife and habitats that were disappearing right before her eyes.” Chelsea wants to protect our ecosystems “not only for their intrinsic value, but also for the protection of communities that are most likely to suffer tangibly from environmental degradation.” Before coming to Lewis & Clark, Chelsea attended community college and Humboldt State University, where she received a degree in WIldlife Biology. She worked full time while pursuing her undergraduate degree, including spending a season as a field research assistant for a frog and snake study in the backcountry wilderness. The study resulted from a Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit, which inspired her to pursue law school.

Her most notable experiences at Lewis & Clark have been her involvement with NEDC and the Earthrise Law Clinic. She “came to law school with zero legal experience and could not be more grateful for the mentorship and sense of belonging those organizations provided her.” Through these organizations she worked on lawsuits seeking to halt illegal logging operations. Thanks to the Diehl Fellowship, she will be joining the Center for Biological Diversity in the Portland office and will be primarily working on endangered species and public lands protections.

Josie Moberg ’22

Josie’s drive for advocacy also began with her childhood. Her parents “raised her to love the earth and all life forms we share it with, and always encouraged her to do her best to advocate for them.” Before she came to Lewis & Clark, she pushed for fossil fuel divestment at her undergraduate university, and also researched ocean acidification for the National Science Foundation. Because much of her undergraduate experiences focused on environmental science, she was equipped with a strong scientific foundation for her legal advocacy.

While she has had “too many notable experiences” to count at Lewis & Clark, one “unforgettable experience was observing and working the jail support hotline with the National Lawyers Guild during the Black Lives Matter/Anti-Policing uprisings in the summer of 2022.” Josie will be working for the Breach Collective, which is an unionized climate movement law nonprofit in Portland. She will be working with the team at Breach to “fight fossil fuel infrastructure and other polluters through the law, led by the frontline communities and grassroots community organizing efforts in Portland.”

Alex Houston ’22

Alex is using the Diehl Fellowship to join Earthrise as the clinic’s newest legal fellow. He was previously the student law clerk for the Northwest Environmental Defense Center and a student leader within the clinic and a summer clerk for Earthrise in the summer of 2020.

Alex is “thrilled to join Earthrise this fall as the new Legal Fellow. While working as a law clerk for the clinic during his 2L and 3L years, he got to see firsthand the kind of impactful work Earthrise does on a daily basis. During that time he gained experience working with nearly every major federal environmental statute, and his lawyering skills improved by writing sections of briefs and legal memos in collaboration with the Earthrise attorneys and staff.” Working with Earthrise gives Alex the “opportunity to not only learn from the best, but to make a meaningful difference in environmental issues in the Northwest and across the country.”