Law, ethics and technological innovation

• Professor Kate Bedford researches law and development, gender and political economy, and gambling law and regulation. She has conducted research on digital technologies and gambling, and on the implications of player surveillance and affordability monitoring. She has also conducted research on the influence of ride-hailing platforms on gender and development research.
• Professor Aleksandra Cavoski researches environmental and EU law, with particular interest in the interaction between law, politics, science, public policy and language.
• Professor John Child co-directs the Criminal Law Reform Now Network and researches in criminal law, including reform of hacking offences and defences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
• Dr Peter Coe researches the changing nature of journalism and its implications for freedom of expression, democracy, the public sphere, and press and online regulation. His research on the Online Safety Act 2023 examines its effectiveness in addressing online harms, including false information and hate speech, and the protection of children.
• Dr Hailemichael Teshome Demissie researches the governance and regulation of AI and other emerging technologies, with particular interest in benefit management and in harnessing technological innovation to address poverty, inequality and sustainability.
• Dr Angela Eggleton conducts interdisciplinary research on the regulation of emerging technologies.
• Dr Stefano Faraoni (Theme Co-Lead) researches artificial intelligence and law, computational manipulation, persuasive technologies, dark patterns, hypernudging, consent and mental self-determination, generative AI, intellectual property, digital twins and technology-related liability. His research examines how AI systems can use dark patterns and hypernudges to influence contractual decision-making and the implications for consent and contractual validity. His research on persuasive technologies has been used as a legal basis in litigation against Meta and TikTok in Italy concerning the use of persuasive technologies on minors.
• Dr Natasha Gooden researches public international law and technological developments, with particular interests in cyber operations, armed conflict and human rights.
• Dr Edina Harbinja specialises in digital rights, post-mortem privacy, digital remains and the regulation of emerging technologies. Her work contributes to international legal and policy innovation concerning digital legacy and technology governance.
• Professor Rosie Harding uses empirical and conceptual socio-legal methods to examine how law operates in everyday life, with particular interests in social justice, family law and disability law.
• Dr Laura Holden researches environmental law, ethical science, the regulation and acceptance of novel technologies, and risk assessment.
• Dr Allison Holmes (Theme Co-Lead) researches the interaction between technology and the criminal justice process and the complex questions of rights, values and ethics arising from that relationship. She has a particular interest in online harms, technologically facilitated offending, data protection, and privacy. Her current research examines regulatory responses to gender based harms resulting from generative AI technologies. ​
• Professor Anthea Hucklesby conducts interdisciplinary research across the criminal justice process. She is a leading expert of electronic monitoring in the criminal justice system and researches the use of technologies in criminal justice and wearable and tracking technologies across domains including health, social care, and immigration.
• Dr Argyro Karanasiou researches law and emerging technologies, with particular interests in wearable technologies, health data, brain-machine interfaces and AI governance. Her current research examines generative AI as cognitive infrastructure, focusing on how AI-mediated systems reshape institutional decision-making, accountability and human autonomy. Her work also explores the implications of cognitive offloading and emerging forms of AI-mediated public participation for the governance of digital societies.
• Professor Atina Krajewska researches health law, global health law, sexual and reproductive justice, and the sociology of health law.
• Dr Maureen Mapp researches relational law, gender and pluriversal justice across physical and digital environments.
• Professor Jean McHale researches in the area of Health and Care Law at the interface between domestic, EU, international and Global Health Law. Her recent work includes examining the legal, ethical and regulatory challenges created by the development of robotic surgery.
• Dr William Page's current research examines the legal governance of live facial recognition surveillance across law enforcement and private bodies, with a focus on transparent and accountable usage within public spaces.
• Professor Muireann Quigley researches law, regulation and policy relating to bodies, biomaterials, medical technologies and biotechnologies, including legal questions surrounding integrated medical devices and the data they generate.
• Dr Shahab Saqib researches the use of critical AI chatbots in legal pedagogy, including the project AI of Unordinary Prudence.
• Mrs Frances Seabridge researches curriculum design in legal education and the integration of employability skills into legal education. As Academic Integrity Lead for the Law School, she has a particular interest in the role which Legal Technology has to play in Academic Integrity and Education, careers and employability and the impact on Commercial Law, which she teaches on the LLB.
• Professor Mohammad Shahabuddin researches international commercial law and the transition of trade transactions from paper-based to digital systems, including how social norms and legal rules can inform digital platform design and legal policy.
• Professor Linden Thomas researches clinical legal education, pro bono, public legal education and employability.
• Professor Lisa Webley researches regulation, education, ethics and professionalism in the legal profession, as well as access to justice and rule of law issues.
• Professor Karen Yeung has extensive expertise in the legal, ethical and democratic implications of digital transformation and AI governance. Her research examines the regulation and governance of emerging technologies, including legal safeguards and testing methods for technologies such as live facial recognition.
• Dr Chen Zhu researches intellectual property law, particularly music copyright, as well as computational legal research methods and legal education.

Carson Lloyd’s (Theme Deputy Lead) doctoral research examines how US constitutional law can govern the privacy implications of interconnected and integrated smart technologies within a fragmented federal system, using smart cities as the practical context. Their research draws on state constitutional law, the mosaic theory of privacy and cumulative privacy harms. Their broader interests span US and UK law, including constitutional and privacy law, AI governance, digital surveillance, distributed ledger technology, data governance and the development of more coherent and accountable frameworks for emerging technologies.

Lily Kennedy’s research focuses on the intersections between law and design bias in technology, specifically health-tracking wearables. She is interested in the extent to which these technologies are sufficiently designed for women, as well as the implications of this for discrimination and equality law.

Sónia Mairos is a doctoral researcher examining how the state produces or sustains harm, and how that involvement is recognised and remedied under the ECHR. She focuses on positive obligations under Articles 2 and 3, from risk regulation and protection to redress. Technology enters this inquiry through its use, or failures to use it, in warning of danger, assessing domestic violence risk and documenting police interventions.