Jean Zhuang
Senior Attorney
Jean leads the point sources group on our Water Team, working toward SELC’s regional goals to rein in industrial and other types of point source pollution flowing into our rivers, lakes, and streams. She identifies strategic goals and helps ensure that efforts across our offices are coordinated. Jean is also the regional PFAS litigator, helping to litigate cases related to these toxic “forever chemicals” throughout the six states served by SELC.
Jean works to ensure that industrial polluters comply with the Clean Water Act. “Everyone should have the right to clean water and, for far too long, industries have been allowed to use our rivers and drinking water supplies as their dumping grounds,” Jean said. “We are working on changing that.”
SELC is a force.
Jean Zhuang
“We are full of passionate, hardworking people and together, we can make a big impact in protecting special places and communities throughout the Southeast. I am consistently impressed and inspired by my colleagues and am honored to be working alongside them. At SELC, we have the freedom to think creatively and to act boldly when it’s needed most to counter all of the forces that try to chip away at our right to clean air and water and a healthy, thriving environment.”
Jean is from south Florida, where the topography is a marked contrast to her favorite place in North Carolina, Cedar Rock Mountain.
“A lot of this hike is on an exposed granite dome, and it seems barren at first—until you notice that all of this grey, creamy rock is lined with mosses and crusty lichen,” she said. “The patches of different greens shift and vibrate against each other. Every once in a while, there will be a shallow bowl in the rock that is almost perfectly round, filled with a pool of water that has been warmed by the sun. This rocky surface somehow supports forests of gnarled pine, bowing and folding in on themselves before they reach their twisting limbs back toward the sky.”
Previous experience
- Sierra Club Environmental Law Program, fellow
- J.D., University of Virginia School of Law, Dean’s Scholarship, Virginia Environmental Law Journal
- B.A., Yale University, cum laude
- With SELC since 2017