Professor Dr Kirk W. Junker

Kirk W. Junker studied philosophy and political science at Pennsylvania State University (B.A. 1981) and received doctorates from Duquesne University School of Law (J.D., 1984) and the University of Pittsburgh (Ph.D., 1996) (USA). He studied German law at the Universities of
Tübingen and Bonn. His professional legal experience includes working as a state trial litigator for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and as a judicial clerk for the Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Professor Junker’s interdisciplinary work includes various academic areas. For example, he has taught at the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Faculty at the Open University in the United Kingdom, the Lifelong Education Department of the Queen's University in Belfast, UK and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Dublin City University in Ireland. From 2001 to 2009, he was Director of International Studies at the Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh and Associate Professor in the areas of Attorney Ethics, Civil Procedure, International Law, International Environmental Law, Environmental Law, Comparative Law and European Law. At the University of Cologne, he is committed to internationalization, interdisciplinarity and environmental and sustainability issues. He has held the Chair of US Law since 2009 and was Chair of the Examination Board in the interdisciplinary International Master of Environmental Sciences programme (IMES) from 2010 to 2023. Professor Junker continues to promote interdisciplinary teaching and research in the environmental sciences. He has been Director of the Faculty of Law’s Environmental Law Center since 2019.

Professor Junker has also served as a project advisor to the European Commission, was a founding member of both the European Network of Science Communication Teachers (ENSCOT) and European Network of Science Communication Researchers (ENSCORE) and is co-editor of several academic journals in the field of environmental law. He has received research funding from the European Commission, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Royal Irish Academy and the British Council, among others.

Professor Junker’s research interests include US law, international law, comparative law, environmental law, European law, law and science, and law and rhetoric.