Meet the team at the Sussex Centre for Law and Technology.
Professor in Law and Technology
Phoebe is the founding Director of the Sussex Centre for Law and Technology (SCLT) at Sussex University. She works with international multi-disciplinary teams addressing legal issues arising from digitisation, particularly in intellectual property (IP), regulation of science and technology, development, and international trade. Phoebe is bilingual in English and Mandarin Chinese.
Email: Phoebe.Li@sussex.ac.uk
Associate Professor in Legal Innovation
Sarah Stephens works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and law, researching how legal innovation can transform justice services across private, public, and pro bono sectors. Her focus is on improving efficiency, expanding access, and reducing unmet legal needs.
Email: sarah.stephens@sussex.ac.uk
Reader in Digital Society and Justice
Judith's socio-legal research concerns public access to information, the protection and regulation of public interest journalism, and broader issues of freedom of expression. Recent research and policy projects have focussed on open justice in the courts, data access within the civil and criminal justice system, and the charitable funding of journalism. She holds fellowships at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and the civil society organisation Connected by Data, and is also a co-director of Sussex Digital Humanities Lab.
Email: Judith.Townend@sussex.ac.uk
Lecturer in Law
Salvatore Fasciana is a lecturer in IP and Technology Law with an interest in Gaming and Human-Machine interaction in the contest of gaming space. He published on matters about artificial creativity, gaming performances and other gaming-related topics. His research looks at gaming spaces as virtual worlds where citizens have access to a new digital dimension where their digital persona exists. Dr. Fasciana is currently researching on the interconnections between Distributed Ledger Technology and Gaming and the cognitive interaction between Users and AIChatBot from a copyright perspective.
Email: S.Fasciana@sussex.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer in International Criminal Law
Shahrzad Fouladvand is interested in Machine Learning with a focus on Natural Language Processing (NLP). Shahrzad’s research is in the field of Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, and she is looking into applying Machine Learning methods in analysing Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking data.
Email: S.Fouladvand@sussex.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer in Law
Maria Mercedes Frabboni’s research focuses on intellectual property licensing in the creative industries and cultural sector. Her work has an international and comparative perspective and analyses collective management of rights, copyright issues surrounding mass digitisation processes, extended collective licensing schemes, open access and the legal framework of fashion design.
Email: M.M.Frabboni@sussex.ac.uk
Reader in Intellectual Property Law, IT/IP LLM Convenor
Andres Guadamuz researches on the intersection of intellectual property and technology, particularly in subjects such as artificial intelligence and distributed ledger technologies.
Email: A.Guadamuz@sussex.ac.uk
Assistant Professor in Competition Law
Liana Japaridze is Assistant Professor in Competition Law at Sussex Law School. Liana's research focuses on improving institutional capacity for effective competition enforcement in the digital age.
Email: liana.japaridze@sussex.ac.uk
Assistant Professor in Law
Beatriz Kira is a legal scholar and social scientist. She is interested in the regulation of social media platforms and the impact of artificial intelligence technologies on information environments.
Email: B.Kira@sussex.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology
Suraj Lakhani’s research focuses on the intersection between video gaming and violent extremism, radicalisation, and counter-terrorism policy, with extensive publications and leadership in projects funded by prominent organisations including as the UK Home Office, European Commission, British Academy and Leverhulme Trust, and the ESRC.
Email: S.Lakhani@sussex.ac.uk
Senior Research Fellow, BMEC/CITP/UKTPO
Minako Morita-Jaeger is a trade policy expert, studying global data and digital trade governance using the multi-disciplinary approach of law, international relations and economics. Her focus is to investigate gaps across regions/countries and those between the international and domestic levels and to identify a role of international trade laws in promoting trustworthy data and digital trade environment.
Email: M.Morita-Jaeger@sussex.ac.uk
Professor of Law and Social Justice
Amir is interested in the impact of technology on the workplace. This includes, but is not limited to, surveillance and privacy; technological forms of discrimination; sanctions following expressions of opinions on social media; and employment status in the tech-driven, gig economy.
Email: A.Paz-Fuchs@sussex.ac.uk
Professor of Economics of Innovation, BMEC/SPRU
Maria Savona is Professor of Economics of Innovation at Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex, UK and Professor of Applied Economics at the Department of Economics and Finance at LUISS University, Rome. She is Co-Investigator on the Digital Theme in the ESRC-funded Research Centre on Inclusive Trade Policy (2022-2027). She is Chief Editor for Research Policy; She was awarded the Linceo Prize for Economics in 2023 by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
Email: M.Savona@sussex.ac.uk
Assistant Professor in Law
Dr Jessica Shurson teaches on a variety of law and technology subjects including cybercrime law, privacy and data protection law, internet law, and critical approaches to information law. Her research is focused on the balance of security and privacy in the context of digital surveillance and cybercrime law.
Email: J.Shurson@sussex.ac.uk
Lecturer in Law
Ana uses a sociolegal approach to explore how digital technologies shape the governance of the global economy, focusing on the legal and institutional trade frameworks in the current geopolitical context. Ana is a Parliamentary Academic Fellow working with the Economic Policy and Statistics research section at the House of Commons Library.
British Academy project on Online Platform Regulation
Zoe Asser is a research assistant at Sussex working on a collaborative project with the Insper Institute in Brazil focused on the duty of care in the Online Safety Act. Zoe is also completing her PhD at Queen Mary University on the deletion of image-based sexual abuse images in the UK and South Korea. Her research primarily focuses on the challenge of addressing emerging online harms, violence against women, and the regulation of online platforms. Zoe previously worked at the House of Lords as a senior researcher for the Online Safety Act and is also a member of a special interest group focussed on media representation of sexual violence.
Email: Z.Asser@sussex.ac.uk
Tatiana-Lynn Makhoul is a Sussex alumna who worked in private practice and was a deputy editor at the Entertainment and Media Law Review. Tatiana has also contributed to the research at Copinger and Skone James on Copyright 18th edition. With experience in research within the field of intellectual property rights and technology, Tatiana-Lynn's research focuses on copyright law for the music industry and the legal challenges that arise with the emerging use of distributed ledger technologies (otherwise known as, blockchain technology) as a medium of exploitation for works subject to copyright protection.
Email: tm282@sussex.ac.uk