Dr. Marcelo Thompson has recently joined the University of Ottawa as an Assistant Professor of Law in the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section. Dr. Thompson will also become a Faculty member of the Centre for Law, Technology and Society.
Dr. Thompson’s teaching and research focus on the intersection between technology law and politics. His work is united by a central concern with the meaning of justice and the institutional conditions necessary for its advancement in the information age. Specific themes he focuses on include the regulation of technological platforms, privacy, data governance, and artificial intelligence.
Dr. Thompson holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, a Master of Laws (Law and Technology) from the University of Ottawa, and a Bachelor of Laws and Post-Graduate Diploma (Intellectual Property Law) from PUC-Rio. His doctoral thesis at Oxford, which he completed with a full scholarship from The CAPES Foundation of the Brazilian Ministry of Education, examined the idea of neutrality in technology law and politics, a theme that still informs much of his work in the field.
Prior to joining the University of Ottawa, Dr. Thompson was a full-time member of the Faculty of Law at The University of Hong Kong, where he served as Acting and Deputy Director of both the Law and Technology Centre and of the Master of Laws in Technology and Intellectual Property Law. At HKU, he was a recipient of the Faculty Research Output Prize “for outstanding research performance” and of GRF (General Research Framework) and Public Policy Research (PPR) grants, the latter awarded by the Hong Kong Chief Executive’s Policy Unit. His report under the PPR, titled “Standards Setting, National Security and the Responsibility of Technological Platforms in Hong Kong” has just been published by the Hong Kong Government. Dr. Thompson remains deeply interested and involved in issues concerning the regulation of the Internet in China, with particular interest on questions of justice raised by China’s Social Credit System.
As Faculty member, Dr. Marcelo Thompson will bring his international perspective on the regulation of technology, grounded in his expertise in platform governance, data governance, and AI, reinforcing the Centre’s commitment to shape technology law and policy in Canada and beyond.
Welcome Dr. Thompson!