The School of Law welcomes new staff members!
We are very happy to introduce our new staff members.
Dr Federica Casano is a specialist in international and EU corporate income taxation and tax policy.
In her PhD research, which she conducted at Leiden University (the Netherlands), she analysed the efficacy of the EU blacklist of tax havens as an external EU tax policy initiative through an interdisciplinary research approach that combines legal and empirical analyses. In particular, she focused on aspects of EU governance, EU and international power dynamics, the EU impact on the tax policy of non-EU countries (including developing countries), and countries' behavioural response. The research led to the identification of multiple tax policy trends, which have been presented in multiple conferences in the EU and beyond (for example in Botswana, at the 2024 ATRN Conference organized by the ATAF and the ICTD on Tax policies and Development in Africa).
At Leeds, she will be involved in teaching some of the modules in business law (including Contract Law, Commercial Law, Torts, and International Tax Law and Policy). She will continue her research in taxation, also paying attention to its interaction with other disciplines and topics (such as democratization, fundamental rights, and social inequality, and illicit flows). She has a passion for interdisciplinary and empirical legal research, and would like to keep these approaches at the core of her studies.
Dr Shouyu Chong has joined the School as Lecturer in Business Law.
He is concurrently a Research Fellow at the Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy and the Yong Pung How School of Law, Singapore Management University, and a recipient of the Singapore Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Graduate Research Fellowship Scheme (GRF) Award (presented as the 'SMU Fellowship for Social Science Graduate Research Award (2024-26)'). He is the co-author of the leading academic commentary on the Singapore Convention (The Singapore Convention on Mediation: A Commentary, Wolters Kluwer, 2019 and 2022), now published in its second edition, and has written prize winning papers on alternative dispute resolution and commercial contracts. His current research interests lie in understanding and modernising cross-border commercial dispute resolution processes from transnational and comparative perspectives. At the School, he will teach subjects on international commercial law, arbitration, conflict of laws, and the law of trusts. He looks forward working closely and collaboratively with the professional and intellectual community here at the School of Law, contributing his expertise on commercial dispute resolution research.
Dr Clare James has returned to the School as a Lecturer in Law.
She undertook a PhD in the School researching the right to food in the UK. Her research focuses on using the right to food to guide policy for food and agriculture, engaging with areas such as business and human rights and trade law. Prior to returning to the School, she spent a year at the University of Sheffield as a Lecturer in Law. Clare has experience teaching on a wide variety of undergraduate and postgraduate modules. She is looking forward to working with colleagues both within the School of Law and also within the University’s Global Food and Environment Institute and being part of such an exciting research community.
Dr Eun Hye Kim has joined the School as Lecturer in Law.
She was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Law Department of the University of Copenhagen. Her principal areas of interest include competition law, empirical legal studies, judicial decision-making and judicial review of administrative decisions. In her research, Eun Hye employs rigorous quantitative techniques to study legal developments. Her research on the role and influence of the Advocate General in the evolution of European competition law was awarded a prize from the European Law Faculties Association (ELFA Awards) in 2022. In 2020, Eun Hye was named as an International Scholar-in-Residence by the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association and since October 2021, she is Assistant Special Editor (Competition Law) at European Papers. At the School of Law in Leeds, she looks forward to being part of a vibrant community of students and leading academics from a wide range of disciplines.
Dr Ioanna Lapatoura has joined the School as Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law.
Prior to joining Leeds in 2024, Ioanna was a Lecturer in Law at University College London (UCL) and at Nottingham Trent University. She holds a PhD in Law from the University of Nottingham, where she comparatively examined intellectual property infringement in fashion and the role of blockchain technology on enforcement. Ioanna's primary areas of research lie on copyright and trademarks, emerging technologies (generative AI, blockchain) and the creative industries. She is thrilled to be joining the School of Law and is looking forward to contributing to this world-renowned academic community.
As a research fellow, Dr Sai Ma has been working on a European project titled ‘Wind Turbine Blades End of Life through Open HUBs for Circular Materials in Sustainable Business Models’ with colleagues across Europe.
Simply put, her team wants to give dead blades a new life! Sai’s research background spans across energy, waste management, and international investment law, but she is always open to exploring unconventional research ideas. If you're like-minded, feel free to bombard her with your ideas!
Igor Szpotakowski has joined the School of Law as a Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law.
Previously, he worked at the University of Edinburgh and was a PhD candidate and Deputy Convenor of the Law and Futures Research Group at Newcastle University. He was a Yenching Scholar at Peking University and served as the Principal Investigator for the project ‘Supply of Services Contracts in Private Law of the PRC: Codification in the Era of Decodification’ at Jagiellonian University. Igor’s areas of expertise span across Copyright Law, AI Law, Data Protection, and Comparative Private Law. At the School of Law in Leeds, Igor looks forward to establishing many collaborations in the area of law and emerging technologies, as well as sharing his broad experience with students and new colleagues.
Dr Andrea Zappalaglio has joined the School as Associate Professor in Intellectual Property Law.
He was previously Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law at the University of Sheffield and Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition (Munich, Germany), having completed a DPhil at the University of Oxford.
After conducting research on the interrelations between International Trade and Intellectual Property, Andrea then focused on quality and origin labels, becoming internationally recognised as an expert in the Law of Geographical Indications and Special Marks. His work has been acknowledged by the European Commission as one of the 'sources of evidence and data' used to devise the recent reform of EU Law in this area, and a study to which he contributed is cited in the Explanatory Memorandum of the new Regulation 2023/2411. He also served as an advisor for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and various national governments.
Currently, his research focuses on Unfair Competition Law, Sustainability, Greenwashing, and the History of Intellectual Property. His scholarship is award-winning and has been funded by UKRI and the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures (University of Sheffield). He says:
Intellectual Property is about what makes us human, and because humans will always innovate, invent, and create, IP will never get old: it is impossible not to love it.
We are looking forward to working alongside our new colleagues in our mission to provide outstanding legal education and produce world-leading, impactful research.
