Dr. Franklin Lebo, Esq.

About The Lecturer

Dr. Franklin B. Lebo, Esq. is the Program Coordinator for the Externship and Professionalism Programs at Emory University, School of Law. Prior to this role, he served as the Program Coordinator for the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program along with the Barton Child Law and Policy Center. Before joining Emory Law, from 2017-2022, Franklin served as an Assistant Professor and Co-Director of Baldwin Wallace University's Sustainability Program. He is the author of BW’s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) reports in 2019 and 2022 and was the university’s liaison to the International Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). 

Franklin has over a decade of experience leading teams on funded projects, conducting operational assessments with multiple directors and officers, and working with community stakeholders on corporate social responsibility and environmental social governance issues. He has experience in seeking and conducting federally funded fieldwork on food insecurity. Franklin is also a veteran lecturer having instructed over twenty five undergraduate and MBA courses in law, policy, business, political science, and sustainability. He served on the International Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) Advisory Council, mentored academic institutions considering whether to conduct a STARS report and has served as a reviewer of sustainability programs at other universities.

Franklin grew up in San Francisco before attending Brandeis University as a Presidential Scholar, double majoring in East Asian Studies and Political Science. He graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Sigma Alpha, and was recognized with the highest honors for his senior thesis on the Japanese administrative system. He then attended law school at UC Law, San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings), earning an International Law Concentration along with a Witkin and CALI Award for his research in Chinese trade law focusing on corporate codes of conduct. He also earned a second CALI Award for his archival research on African American shipyard workers in World War II. He is a licensed attorney in Ohio.

Franklin then earned a doctorate in transnational/comparative politics and policy at Kent State University, also passing the field exam in justice studies. His dissertation continued his undergraduate thesis topic and is now a published book exploring Japan’s National Personnel Authority. Fieldwork involved in situ research in Tokyo and conducting interviews with government officers in Japanese. He was also an official member of the U.S. Young Scholars Delegation to Taiwan hosted by the Taiwanese government. 

Franklin has significant nonprofit experience and was recognized with Gold Level Presidential Service Awards from Barack Obama in 2009 and 2010 for his work with underserved high school students in the Cleveland Municipal School District as a founding member of the Cleveland Chapter of Minds Matter, a national 501(c)(3).

Professional interests include benefit corporations, public-private partnerships (3P), environmental social governance (ESG), and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Publications

Krupp, Brian and Lebo, Franklin Barr. (2022). “Note: Campus Plate: Reducing Food Waste and Food Insecurity on College Campuses Using Smartphones.” In ACM SIGCAS/SIGCHI Conference on Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 682-684. DOI: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3530190.3534840.

Lebo, Franklin Barr. (November 2021). "Development Theory and the Global Aid Regime," in Nukhet Sandal (Ed.). Oxford Research Encyclopedia. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, pp.1-32.

Lebo, Franklin Barr. (December 2019.) "Evaluating a Collaborative Governance Regime in Renewable Energy: Wind Power and the Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo)." Environmental Development, Vol. 32:1-15.

Lebo, Franklin Barr. (2018). "Between Democracy and Technocracy: Regulating Administrative Guidance in Japan." New York: Lexington Books.

Lebo, Franklin Barr. (June 2016). "Proposing a New Framework: Including China on the Crossroads of Transitional Justice and Reconciliation." Asian Journal of Comparative Politics. Vol.1(2): 171-189.

Hook, Steven W. and Lebo, Franklin Barr. (2014). "Sino-American Trade Relations: Privatizing Foreign Policy," in Ralph G. Carter (Ed.). Contemporary Cases in U.S. Foreign Policy: From Terrorism to Trade, 5th Edition. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, pp.316-346.

Hook, Steven W. and Lebo, Franklin Barr. (2010). "Development/Poverty Issues and Foreign Policy Analysis," in Robert A. Denemark (Ed.). The International Studies Encyclopedia. Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, pp.949-969.


IN THE NEWS

Cordell, Taneisha. (February 8, 2021). "Baldwin Wallace University students tackle campus hunger, creates app to help reduce food waste and food insecurity." News 5 Cleveland.

McCafferty, Rachel Abbey. (May 26, 2019). "Being Environmentally Friendly has Potential Perks for Colleges and Universities." Cleveland Crain’s.

Nieves, Marissa. (November 9, 2019). "BW Among Schools Making Efforts to Combat Climate Change: From Geothermal to Food, An Emphasis on Sustainability." Baldwin Wallace University Exponent.

Walker, Hannah. (April 26, 2019). "BW Earns Silver Recognition in Sustainability Systems Rankings." Baldwin Wallace University Exponent.

Education

Ph.D., Kent State University

J.D., UC Law, San Francisco

B.A., Brandeis University