LAW & TECH LAB @ HSG

I am a Professor for International Economic Law, conducting research on digital technology regulation and inequality. At the same time, I also serve as one of the directors of the InternetLab, a think tank in internet policy in São Paulo. I am particularly interested in the impact of technology on democracy and political culture, platform regulation, online gender-based violence, AI, and copyright regarding knowledge and cultural diversity. In 2022, I had the privilege to serve on the Brazilian Senate Commission developing an AI Regulation Proposal. The University of São Paulo awarded me my PhD, but I also liked UC Berkeley quite a bit when I was visiting as a researcher there.

mariana.valente@unisg.ch

I am a Professor of Criminal Law and conduct research on the implications of technological advances for criminal law, law enforcement, criminal justice, and policing. My interest is in responsibility in human-machine interaction, cybercrime, the use of AI in law enforcement (‘smart criminal justice’), and state surveillance in the digital age. Recent projects concern predictive policing, face recognition technology and open source investigations. My PhD from Zurich not only got me to St. Gallen, but also to New York, Oxford, and Vienna as a visiting researcher and to a place called Erlangen where I am a fellow at the Research Group for Cybercrime and Forensic Computing.

monika.simmler@unisg.ch

I am a Professor for Business Law with a focus on Information Law. Technology is my passion, especially self-driving cars, robots, and AI, which I investigate to see how the law should deal with innovation and how the legal market changes. As Director of the Institute for Law of  Innovation and Technology at the University of St.Gallen (LIT-HSG), I have headed several research projects at the interface of technology and law. Prior to my position at HSG, I spent a couple of highly insightful years at the Robotics and Biology Lab of the Technical University of Berlin at the Institute for Technical Informatics and Microelectronics – where I also shared my office with a robot.

melinda.lohmann@unisg.ch

I am a Professor of Law and Economics focusing on digital platforms and AI in the EU. I am also a Research Fellow at the Centre on Regulation in Europe (CERRE) in Brussels. I have published on who should be responsible for AI; how platforms can be held responsible for their content; and how to reign in platforms’ market power. A lawyer and an economist by training, I hold a PhD from Erasmus University Rotterdam. I like being involved in the policy debates in Brussels, currently on the Digital Services Act and its implementation, as well as on the AI Liability Directive.

miriam.buiten@unisg.ch

I am a Professor for Private and Commercial Law who likes to combine these areas with new technologies and innovations. In 1998 I finished my PhD on the liability for biotech products. Over the years my research focus shifted from biotech and life sciences to robotics and AI. My recent research has focused on AI tech at the workplace with a project on People Analytics from 2017-2021 (funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation) and liability for AI in Switzerland and beyond. As a techie, I am super enthusiastic about cooperating with my fellow academics at the Law School at the University of St. Gallen.

isabelle.wildhaber@unisg.ch

I am a Professor of International Law and European Law and have investigated robots, AI, and tech in the perspective of law and ethics since 2012. I enjoyed attending the Darpa Robotics Challenge in L.A. in 2015 – disguised as a robot, of course –, landing a paper at NeurIPS in Barcelona 2016, and giving talks on tech at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, and Stanford. I have binders full of publications but my latest initiative, the First University of St. Gallen Grand Challenge: the EU A.I. Act 2023, really keeps me awake at night.

thomas.burri@unisg.ch