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Speaker Biographies

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Asmaa Abdelhalim is a Master’s holder. She got her degree in May 2021 in urban development with Technische Universität Berlin. She is interested in urban sociology and had her thesis on the topic of forced relocation and its effects on the relocatees with a case study from Alexandria, Egypt. Ms. Abdelhalim had her bachelor’s degree in architecture in 2016 in Alexandria University and is currently living in Berlin. Ms. Abdelhalim is interested in community-based development and neighborhood management. She worked on several development projects in Egypt such as the 1blue Hole development project in South Sainai.

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Omar Aboutaleb is a M.sc candidate for urban management and development program at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is in parallel a self-employed researcher and co-founder of Tabdeel Organization. Aboutaleb's interests are in the fields of urban development, urban mobility and social entrepreneurship.

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Ahmed Tarek Alahwal is a PHD candidate and researcher at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg.

Ahmed’s past experience includes being a program coordinator and co-founder of Tabdeel for cycling urbanism, as well as Trickool for water technologies, in addition to the position of urban program coordinator at Megawra - Built Environment Collective, and urban researcher at Copenhagenize for cycling urbanism. Ahmed holds a master’s of urban management and development, specialised in urban land governance, from the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS), Rotterdam.

Ahmed’s research independently and with the mentioned institutions covers the fields of urban mobility, urban water management, land taxation, public space management.

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Samar Adel Mohamed Mohamed Alarif is an urban planner and researcher interested in urban management and smart city approaches and strategies. Samar used to work as a teaching assistant and BIM Architect. She got her bachelor in Architecture from the Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University. Samar is a current master student in urban management, Technische Universität Berlin.Samar is interested in integrating the social, political, and technological dimensions to achieve efficient urban performance. linking urban management with data science; her master thesis title was "The Utilization of Urban/ Building Information Modeling (UIM/BIM) To Achieve Energy Sustainable Facility Management Services: Case Study of Smart University Campus/TU El-Gouna campus". The main thesis outcome is a conceptual framework of a platform to foster sustainable innovations in the energy built domain for smart educational campuses. Furthermore, promote the smart campus relationship within the surrounding urban context (district or city or region).
Samar's passionate about smart cities' approaches; as she is motivated to find practical solutions to attract citizens from diverse communities to live in the Egyptian new cities. smart approaches enable Inclusive, Innovative governance, and guarantee effective interaction between the local government and stakeholders, including the citizens, to stimulate better service delivery and attract SMEs driven by Innovations and Entrepreneurship.
Her recent research work includes serving as lead author for the paper "Smart Water Management platform for urban areas, Egypt" in the Second International Conference "Water, Megacities and Global Change". Recent achievements; Samar, with her team, won the first prize in Berlin Water Hackathon 2021 for the team wok idea " aquapolisBerlin", a mobile water app to Customized Information for all Berlin water services users individual needs.

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Rachelle Alterman (Prof. emerita at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology - and Senior Researcher at the Neaman Institute for National Policy Research) is an urban planner and lawyer, holding degrees from the University of Manitoba in Canada (BA Hon. and MCP), a PhD from the Technion and LLB from Tel Aviv University. She specializes in comparative planning law, land policy and housing rights, and heads the Faculty Laboratory on these topics. She is the Founding President of the International Academic Association on Planning, Law and Property Rights and an Honorary Fellow of the Association of European Schools of Planning. An up-to-date listing of her publications may be viewed here

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Dr. Rhonda M. Anthony completed her Doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy in August of
2020 at University of Memphis. Dr. Anthony’s research analyzes past and current education policies through the lenses of Critical Race Theory and Social Construction of Target Groups. The focus of her research is how education policies impact Black students in urban schools.
Dr. Anthony was selected as the Outstanding Leadership and Policy Studies Award recipient by the University of Memphis College of Education in April of 2021, in recognition of her research. She currently serves as a school level administrator for Shelby County Schools, the largest urban public-school district in Tennessee. 

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Dr. Tarun Arora serves as a Professor and Dean of School of Legal Studies at Central University of Punjab, India. Also associated with United Nations Development Programme as an Expert on International Biodiversity Law and Critical Legal Conference 2021 as Convener of Session on Human Rights. His areas of expertise are Environmental Law, Constitutional Law, Jurisprudence and Human Rights. Involved in research on Climate Change and Energy Law, Rights of Indigenous People and published number of papers thereon.
http://cup.edu.in/Faculty_Profile_Webpages/Law/Prof_Tarun_Arora.pdf

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 Eman Ateek is an architect graduated in 2011 from Zaqaziq University, now she is a Master Degree
candidate at Cairo University as an urban design major, working on a thesis entitled “Socio-economic Regeneration for Nile Delta Waterfront”. Besides working as a professional architect and Master Degree candidate, Eman is also a founder-director for an urban revitalization initiative in her home city, Zaqaziq Revitalization initiative (ZR), leading a team of 10 architects and urbanists to revitalize the city's major spaces to re-brand Zaqaziq and restore its lost identity in order to be a resilient, green and attractive city and ultimately improve the quality of life for all Zaqaziq inhabitants.

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Helmut Philipp Aust is a Professor of Law at Freie Universität Berlin. His research focuses on questions of public international law (especially sources, responsibility, collective security and human rights) as well as on comparative foreign relations law. A special focus of his work lies on the growing role of cities as global actors. In this context, he co-chairs a Study Group of the International Law Association (ILA) with Janne Nijman on “The Role of Cities in International Law”. His publications include "Das Recht der globalen Stadt" (Mohr Siebeck 2017), "The Globalisation of Urban Governance - Legal Perspectives on Sustainable Development Goal 11" (Routledge 2019, co-edited with Anél du Plessis) as well as the imminent "Research Handbook on International Law and Cities" (Edward Elgar 2021, co-edited with Janne E. Nijman). 

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Yishai Blank is Professor of Law at Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Law, and the Faculty’s Chair of the Graduate Studies Program. Between 2011-2014 he served as the Vice Dean for Academic Affairs. Yishai’s areas of research and teaching include Local Government Law, Administrative Law, Global Cities, Urban Legal Policy, Law and Secularism, and Legal Theory. Professor Blank obtained his LL.B. and an additional B.A in Philosophy (both magna cum laude) from Tel-Aviv University. He clerked for the Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, and practiced law in the leading law firm I. Gornitzky & Co. Professor Blank continued his studies at Harvard Law School, where he was a Byse Fellowship recipient, and where he received his LL.M. in 1999 and his S.J.D. in 2002. He was a member of the Young Scholars in the Humanities and Social Sciences Forum of the Israeli Academy of Science and Humanities, and he is a two-time recipient of prestigious fellowship from the Israeli Science Foundation (ISF). Professor Blank was a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Cornell Law School, University of Toronto Law School, Queen’s University Law School, Sciences Po Law School (Paris), Brown University, University of Hamburg, and the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law (Spain). Professor Blank’s works have been published in law journals in the United States and in Israel, including Stanford Law Review, Cornell Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, Harvard Journal of International Law, Harvard Civil-Rights Civil-Liberties Law Review, Fordham Urban Law Journal, the Urban Lawyer, Tel-Aviv University Law Review, and Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.

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Amy Laura Cahn is a Visiting Professor and Acting Director of the Environmental Justice Clinic. Through movement lawyering practice and scholarship, Amy Laura collaborates with organizers and communities to confront the cumulative effects of racial segregation, neighborhood disinvestment, and environmental and climate risk and support self-determination.

Prior to joining VLS, Amy Laura served as Senior Attorney and Interim Director of the Healthy Communities & Environmental Justice Program at the Conservation Law Foundation, launching CLF’s community lawyering efforts. Amy Laura joined CLF from the Public Interest Law Center in Philadelphia, where she was a Skadden Fellow and Director of the Garden Justice Legal Initiative—the nation’s first urban agriculture law clinic. For five years, Amy Laura served as legal counsel to residents in the frontline floodplain community of Eastwick in addressing the legacy injustices of this country's largest urban renewal project. Amy Laura has clerked for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division. Amy Laura is also a lecturer at Tufts University, teaching Climate Policy and Climate Justice.

Amy Laura sits on the Penn Law Alumni Advisory Board for Inclusion & Engagement and the Legal Advisory Board for Alternatives for Community and Environment. She is a longtime community organizer and co-founder of Lower Manhattan's Bluestockings Bookstore. She has a B.A., summa cum laude, from Hunter College and a J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

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Emmanuel Caliwan is a Junior Legal & Cultural Sociologist and a Legal Scholar currently engaged in Data Privacy and Data Protection practice. He also does research and consultancy in the field of Financial Crimes with emphasis on Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Fraud, Anti-Bribery, and Anti-Corruption. Additionally, he is a Part-time Instructor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (currently on an indefinite-leave).
Mr. Caliwan received a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology with a minor in Anthropology from the
Polytechnic University of the Philippines. He later received a Juris Doctor Degree in Law from the University of the East-Manila. Most recently (2020), he finished a Certificate Course in International Human Rights Law at Florida State University as an International Bar Association (IBA) Scholar. He currently serves as the Vice-President for Professional Affairs of the High School Philippine History Movement and is the Chairman & President of PUP Sociology Alumni Association.
His research interest involves the study of Political Ponerology, Corruption, Privacy, Surveillance,
Constitutional and International Law, as well as studies on “Contemporary” and Socio-Legal 

History. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmanuel-caliwan-j-d-6212a3169/

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Professor Helen Carr (Professor of Law, University of Kent) graduated with a B.A in Jurisprudence from Oxford University and subsequently qualified as a solicitor. She entered academia after over 13 years of legal practice. She has an M.A from the Open University in Sociology and Criminology and obtained her PhD from the University of London in 2009. 

She has extensive experience in teaching housing, property, public law and law to social workers at undergraduate and post-graduate levels. She has been Director of Education for Kent Law School and is committed to student-centred and research-led teaching. With Dr. Kirsty Horsey and Mr. Ben Watson she is writing an innovative textbook for first year students on Legal Skills and the English Legal System.

Professor Carr practised at a Law Centre before entering academia. She represented clients in a number of high profile judicial review cases concerning homelessness, closure of care homes and habeus corpus.

She has been a part-time judge with the First Tier Tribunal (Property) Chamber for more than ten years.  Her work load includes rent cases, service charges and Housing Act cases.

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Fernanda Catao received a Master of Laws in Law & Tech from Duke University School of Law, and a Bachelor of Laws from Universidade Católica de Pernambuco. She is a lawyer with practice in Privacy, Data Protection and Technology and a Certified Information Privacy Professional/Europe (CIPP/E) by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). She is the co-author of the paper Cities and Facial Recognition: a threat to privacy.

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Dhanay María Cadillo Chandler, Ph.D, is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Turku Institute of Advanced Studies (TIAS) for the period 2018-2019, and a Post- Doctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Law. She collaborates with the Academy of Finland funded Project Constitutional Hedges of Intellectual Property (CONST-IP) http://const-ip.utu.fi/. She is a lawyer graduated from MonteÁvila University (Venezuela). Additionally she obtained a Master Degree in Foreign Trade from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain), and her Ph.D in 2014 from Hanken School of Economics (Finland).
Cadillo Chandler in her doctoral thesis “The Role of Patent within the Latin American Development” wrote a comparative analysis between Brazil, Chile and Venezuela’s patent and public health policies. In the thesis she discussed the importance of the human right to health in the development of public health policies addressed to provide access to medicines in these three countries. Among her findings, she suggested a tailor implementation of the TRIPS Agreements in accordance to countries’ needs, while also suggesting 1) to look for alternative incentives to the patent system to foster R&D in specific areas; and 2) the need to stress the complementariness between public health policies and patent law policies addressing access to essential medicines. In addition, her research interests include human rights, corporate social responsibility, intellectual property rights, international trade, traditional knowledge and commercial law in general. All areas of expertise where she has taught at the University of Turku and other superior education institutions.
In the academic year 2017-2018 Mrs. Cadillo Chandler was the responsible teacher for the courses Intellectual property protection and licensing models for new technologies, Foundations of International and European Intellectual Property Law and Advanced Studies in Law and Information Society at the University of Turku. She is currently responsible for courses at doctoral level as well. She has presented research papers at several international conferences and has published regularly since 2016.

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Vinícius Monte Custodio is a PhD candidate in Economic Law and Political Economy at the University of São Paulo (Brazil). He holds a master's degree in Planning Law and Environmental Law from the University of Coimbra (Portugal). Lawyer. Legal Office Adviser for Environmental Law at Rio de Janeiro State Department for Environment and Sustainability. Rio de Janeiro City Council's Counsellor.

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Nestor Davidson joined Fordham Law School in 2011 and was named the Albert A. Walsh Professor of Real Estate, Land Use and Property Law in 2017. Professor Davidson is an expert in property, urban law, and affordable housing law and policy, and is the co-author of the casebook Property Law:  Rules, Policies and Practices (7th ed. 2017).  Professor Davidson founded and serves as the faculty director of the law school’s Urban Law Center and previously served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.

Professor Davidson practiced with the firm of Latham and Watkins, focusing on commercial real estate and affordable housing, and served as Special Counsel and Principal Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Professor Davidson earned his AB from Harvard College and his JD from Columbia Law School. After law school, he clerked for Judge David S. Tatel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Justice David H. Souter of the Supreme Court of the United States.

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Elena De Nictolis is Post-Doc researcher at the Department of Political Science (LabGov.city program) Luiss University (Rome) where she is also Adjunct Professor of Urban Law and Policy (Department of Political Science), Smart Cities and Governance of Innovation and Sustainability (Department of Law). She earned her Phd in Political Theory, Political Science and Political History at Luiss University (Rome, Italy) with a thesis on urban public policies to promote and regulation of urban co-governance of resources, services and infrastructures and on the urban commons more broadly in the Italian context. Her current research interests are the role of cities in the international framework (i.e. city diplomacy and city networking, city science) of the global governance of innovation, health, sustainable development.

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Papon Dev has more than eight years’ of professional experience in Asia, Europe and Africa with universities (Technical University Berlin, Khulna University etc.), consulting firms (Council for Asian Liberal and Democrats, IFC- World Bank etc.), national and international NGOs (Save the Children, Global2030 e.V. etc.), research organizations (Wetland Resource Development Society, Social Activities for Environment, etc.) and public institutions (Khulna City Corporation, Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing etc.) with completion of his M.Sc. on ‘Urban Development’ from TU Berlin Campus El Gouna and B.Sc. on “Urban & Rural Planning” from Khulna University, Bangladesh.

He is an integrated package who has both academic and practical experience with different spectacles. He is well acknowledged about how to bring practices into academic theories. He has worked not only in Germany, but also with the organizations and firms from Bangladesh, India, Philippines, Egypt, United Kingdom, Netherland, USA etc. He has worked in different urban domains like urban economy, urban sociology, urban ecology, urban resilience, urban agriculture with a specialization in the environmental and social studies. He has numbers of publications in the field of climate change, agriculture, transport planning, urban governance, solid waste management etc.

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Isolde de Villiers is a lecturer in the department of Mercantile Law at the University of the Free State, South Africa. Her research focuses on spatial justice from a feminist perspective and the ways in which aspects of law, business and commerce intersect with the spatiality of the overlooked city of Bloemfontein/Mangaung and surroundings.

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Yustina Trihoni Nalesti Dewi graduated from Law Faculty of Gajah Mada University. She currently is a
senior lecturer and the Head of The Center for Urban Studies of Soegijapranata Catholic University
Indonesia. She specializes in international law, humanitarian and human rights law, and conflict
reconciliation. She has published 4 books, many articles, and other works. She was invited as a visiting
scholar at Flinders Law School, Adelaide, Australia (2010 and 2013) and as a guest researcher at Norwegian Center for Human Rights, Oslo University, Norway in 2009. Dr. Dewi has been involved in multiple research projects on social conflict, reconciliation and reparation, and frequently works together with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in disseminating of human rights and humanitarian law issues in the workshops, seminars, and courses for the Indonesian lecturers and public officials.

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Salma Ellakany is a current student of TU Berlin Campus El Gouna, studying Urban Development and currently writing her master’s thesis on: Social Enterprises and Collaborative Local Participation for the Development of Marginalized Communities in Egypt. In tandem, she is the project manager of an upcycling workshop that employs the marginalized women of Qursaya Island located in Giza, Egypt. She also works as a freelancer and part-time employee in the fields of User Experience Design and Organization Development following her experience in RiseUp, a platform for entrepreneurship in the MENA region as its Chief Experience Officer. Furthermore, she has previously studied Architecture Engineering in the American University in Cairo, with minors in Community Development and Organizing, Film and Digital Media.

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Dr. Hassan Elmouelhi has been a senior researcher at the Habitat Unit since September 2014. Hassan studied M.Sc. architecture at Cairo University before pursuing his doctoral degree in Berlin. In 2014, he completed his doctoral degree with a research entitled 'Culture and informal urban development. The case of Cairo Ashwa’eyat – informal settlements' at the TU Berlin (DAAD Scholarship 2010-2014). Hassan Elmouelhi’s research focuses on culture and informal urban settlements, residents’ socio-cultural aspects, patterns of use in urban space, power relations within communities in an informal urban development context. Supported by BMBF research funding from the (German Egyptian research fund) at the TU Berlin, he is currently a team member in a research project that investigates the priorities of urban development in Cairo’s informal settlements in a range of local initiatives and international cooperation projects.

Hassan Elmouelhi teaches in the international Urban development master’s program (Campus El-Gouna) as well as other master’s courses in Architecture and Urban Design. He has a wide range of experiences from working in ar­chitecture and planning consultancies with a special focus on the MENA region. He has also experience in conducting qualitative research and fieldwork in different contexts. He is currently also coordinating the Real City Lab project: practical Orientation in Architectural Education (Praxispartnerschaften/ Business Partnership-BMZ fund ) between TU Berlin (Habitat Unit/UD Campus El Gouna) and (Architecture Department, Faculty of Fine Arts - Helwan University - Egypt) that aims at developing the curricula of bachelor degree to fit better with market needs (2016-2019).

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Patrik Emblad is a senior lecturer in tax law in the department of law and the department of economics at the University of Gothenburg. He is the recipient of  a Master of Laws from University of Gothenburg (2015), and a Doctor of Laws from University of Gothenburg (2020). His other academic engagement includes being part of the OSHER PhD Student Fellowship (Barbro Osher Foundation) and the evaluation committee of the PhD program at the University of Uppsala. Mr. Emblad has contributed to multiple publications and articles since 2015. Beyond academia, Mr. Emblad is the CEO for TOR / Skattenytt Foundation och Skattenytt Förlags AB, as well as a board member (chairman) for Skattenytt Förlags AB.

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Professor Chiara Feliziani, Ph.D LLM is assistant professor of Administrative Law at the School of Law, University of Macerata, where she holds courses of Environmental Law and Administrative Justice. Since 2018 she is qualified as Associate Professor of Administrative Law. Previously, she was research fellow of Administrative Law at the faculty of Economics, La Sapienza University of Rome (2014 - 2016) and at the School of Law, University of Macerata (2016 - 2018). She also was adjunct professor of Environmental Policies at the School of Law, La Sapienza University of Rome (2016 - 2018).

In 2013 she got a Ph.d in Public Law of Economics at the Faculty of Economics, La Sapienza University of Rome. Her final dissertation has been awarded as "Best Ph.d Thesis 2014" (prize held by La Sapienza). In 2011 Chiara was visiting research fellow at the School of Law of the King's College (London) and in 2012 she carried on her studies at the European University Institute (Florence), while in 2014 and in 2017 she was visiting scholar at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (London). Finally, in 2016 she was visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg).

She is the author of articles in the fields of Administrative Law, Administrative Justice, and Environmental Law, as well as of two books "Tutela ambientale e servizio pubblico. Il caso della
gestione dei rifiuti in Italia e in Inghilterra" (Sapienza University Press, Rome, 2014) and "Giustizia
amministrativa, amministrazione e ordinamenti giuridici. Tra diritto nazionale, diritto dell'Unione europea e Cedu" (Editoriale scientifica, Napoli, 2018).

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Alceu Fernandes-Neto studies Law at the University of Brasília (UnB) with a sandwich period at the University of Lisbon (UL) at the University of Bologna (UniBo). Since 2014, he has been a scholarship holder of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and served as an intern at the Supreme Court and at the Ministry of Justice of Brazil. He is currently coordinator of the Observatório da Justiça Livre at UnB, conducting research on (i) inequality and law; (ii) general theory of law and the state; and (iii) relations between politics, constitution and human rights. When he is away from university studies, he spends time with his reading, having fun with his family and friends and listening to jazz, samba and bossa nova.

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Daniel Friedenzohn (J.D., M.A., Economics) is Associate Dean and Professor in the College of Aviation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. He obtained his law and master’s degree in Economics from Syracuse University and practiced law representing clients on various aviation, criminal, and land use matters. Dr. Friedenzohn also has airline management experience. He worked in the revenue management and international route planning departments at United Airlines.

Dr. Friedenzohn teaches aviation law and conducts research on various legal issues pertaining to the airline industry as well as unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).  He speaks at conferences about emerging issues in the aviation industry and is the chair of the Transportation Research Board’s New Users of Shared Airspace Committee.  Dr. Friedenzohn has written about various aviation matters for Air Transport World, The Airline Monitor, Boston University Public Interest Law Journal and Issues in Aviation Law and Policy.  

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Hisham S. Gabr is a Professor of Architecture in the Department of Architecture at Cairo University, and an adjunct professor of architecture at American University in Cairo. His general research interests include architecture and human behavior, with specific research interests in tourist and waterfront environments,  architecture and urban aesthetics, post-occupancy evaluation, and cultural, heritage, and human issues in design. Beyond academia, Dr. Gabr is the Principal of United Architects (Cairo, Egypt). He received a PH.D. in Architecture from University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, as well as his B. SC. and M.SC. in Architecture from Cairo University. Among other awards, Dr. Gabr received the Distinction Award in Teaching from the College of Engineering, UAEU. A firm believer in internet-based teaching, his online courses are freely accessible from www.hishamgabr.com (previously http://www.engg.cu.edu.eg/hgabr) by clicking on the desired course.
 

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Dr. Aviv Gaon earned his Ph.D. in Law from Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto Canada in 2019. Dr. Gaon is a member of IP Osgoode Center for Intellectual Property and Technology, and a 2019-2020 Fellow at The Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Dr. Gaon specializes in Intellectual Property, Law & Technology and Competition Law. Dr. Gaon earned his bachelor and master degrees in Law (LL.B & LL.M) at IDC Herzliya ,and upon completion of his legal studies, joined top Israeli law firm as an associate at the Competition & Antitrust Department, where he provided legal counsel to individuals and companies with respect to a wide range of legal issues. In his academic capacities, Dr. Gaon is the Director of IDC Herzliya Experiential Programs, the Director of Harry Radzyner Law School Honorary Program and a lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Dr. Gaon recent publications focus on legal implications and regulation of emerging technologies including artificial intelligence.

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Diego Gil is an Assistant Professor at the School of Government of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He holds an LL.B. from Universidad de Chile and a J.S.M. and J.S.D. from Stanford Law School. From 2014 to 2018 he was the Teaching Fellow for the Stanford Program in International Legal Studies at Stanford Law School. His research focuses mostly on topics related to housing, land use law, property, and urban development, from a sociolegal perspective.

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Pablo Francisco Miguel Aguilar González, originally from Mexico City, is an Urban Planning Lawyer, Master in Studies and City Management. He has 25 years of experience in Urban and Environmental Rights; litigant specialized in urban planning and constitutional defense in Latin America. He is a consultant and advisor to governments, municipalities and development companies and investors for urban development projects in Latin America; Academic specialized in urban legislation for Professional Associations, Governments, Construction and Urban Planning Experts, Universities in Mexico and abroad; Holder of the law firm Abogados Urbanistas, with Latin American scope in Urban Law; Author of books and publications on Urban Law. President of the College of Urban Jurisprudence CJUR International, a non-profit, non-Governmental organization with influence on 4 continents whose essential objective is social transformation for a dignified life and happiness, through urban law, legislation, as well as through the recognition, guarantee, defense and promotion of Human Rights in a peaceful and innovative way, applying a comprehensive approach centered on the human person. Member of the International Academic Association on Planning Law, and Property Rights and International Research Group on Law and Urban Space. Participating partner and collaborator of the Urban Lex platform of the UN Agency Habitat, group of experts for the implementation of the New Urban Agenda and the Regional Action Plan for Latin America. Coordinator of the National Urban Campaign for Mexico of the World Urban UN Habitat Campaign; Urban Thinkers Campus of the World Urban Campaign of UN Habitat specialized in Urban Legislation and Fundamental Rights in Latin America, Europe and Asia; group of legal experts for the formation of a Binding Agreement on Urban Planning for Latin America, in coordination with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean ECLAC and UN Habitat Latin America.

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Iman Hegazy is a PhD-candidate at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, professorship of Urban-sociology. In 2015 she got her master degree of architecture and urbanism, European urban studies program (EUS), from the same university. In 2012 she acquired her bachelor of architecture from the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT) in Alexandria, Egypt. She worked as assistant-lecturer and researcher in several universities, in Egypt as well as Germany. Her main focus is on the topics of socio-architecture and urban-sociology. She has interests in the subjects of community development, especially concerning diversity, migration and integration. Currently, her researchers are oriented towards the social field. She qualitatively reviews the societal symbolic-meaning of the urban fabric, in order to enhance the cities’ social harmony and coexistence. In addition to her academic engagements, and to improve her practical experiences, she works as an architect and urban planner in an architecture office in Germany. She was born on January 22nd 1990, in Alexandria, Egypt.

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Tyler Holmes is a programme lawyer with Irish Rule of Law’s Access to Justice Project in Lilongwe, Malawi. His work involves advocating within and engaging the Malawi Police Service on matters of legal compliance, especially in pretrial detention of suspects and proper treatment of children. This work, especially monitoring the arrest of Malawians for petty offences, led to his paper, “Law and Law Enforcement’s Impact on Malawi’s Informal Urban Workforce.” Before working in Malawi, Holmes volunteered with the Southern Africa Litigation Centre in Johannesburg and practiced law in Kansas and Missouri, where he is licensed. Tyler's research interests include policing and human rights, strategic litigation, legal development, and international trade.

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Yifat Holzman-Gazit is a Professor at the School of Law, College of Management in Israel. She has a JSD (’97) from Stanford Law School and an LL,B (cum laude ’89) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her areas of research are land expropriation, history of Israeli land law, real estate appraisal, tree protection legislation, and media coverage of Supreme Courts.
She is the author of Land Expropriation in Israel: Law, Culture and Society (Ashgate publishing 2007) and has published numerous articles on the formation of Israeli land expropriation jurisprudence, the Jewish National Fund, the role of real estate appraisers in expropriation claims and press coverage of Israel’s Supreme Court. Prof. Holzman-Gazit has been a visiting professor at Stanford Law School as the Schusterman Israeli Visiting Professor (2007-2008) and a Senior Michigan Grotius Research Scholar at University of Michigan Law School (2014).
She was a member of the International Committee of the Law and Society Association and serves on the boards of the Israeli Law and Society Association and the Center for Media and Law at Bar-Ilan University. In addition, since 2010 Prof. Holzman-Gazit has served as the representative of the Israeli legal academy in the Advisory Committee for Land Expropriation. Prof. Holzman-Gazit is also a community activist in preventing unnecessary removal of trees.

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Christian Iaione is Associate Professor of Public Law at Luiss University (Rome, Italy) where he teaches urban law and policy; land use; regulatory innovation; research and innovation and finance procurement; law and policy of innovation and sustainability (with Sofia Ranchordas). At Luiss he is also deputy director of the research center BILL-Blockchain, artificial Intelligence and digital innovation Law Lab, coordinator of the innovation area of the Luiss School of Law, faculty co-director of the graduate course in Law, Digital Innovation and Sustainability, and faculty co-director of LabGov – LABoratory for the GOVernance of the City as a Commons (www.labgov.city), coordinator of the Horizon2020 Open Heritage and EUARENAS projects. He is Luiss coordinator in ENGAGE.EU, an alliance of European Universities engaged in societal challenges. He is also affiliated fellow of the Urban Law Center at Fordham University and co-director of LabGov Georgetown University. He has been the expert of the EU Committee of the Regions who drafted the opinion on the “Local and regional dimension of the sharing economy“. He is member of the Sharing Economy International Advisory Board of the Seoul Metropolitan Government and e-advisor of several Italian local governments and institutions (Tuscany Region, City of Rome, City of Bologna, City of Reggio Emilia). He is UIA – Urban Innovative Actions expert appointed by the European Commission for the Co-City project of the City of Turin, lead expert of the EU Urbact program for the Civic eState project, member of the Urban Partnership on Innovative and Responsible Procurement and the Urban Agenda for Culture and Cultural Heritage within the Urban Agenda for the EU. He is member of the board of directors of AgID, the Italian Agency for Digitalization. He contributed to shape and coordinates the technical assistance of the Ministry of Culture program Culture Urban Future. He is scientific advisor on innovation issues for Federcasa and Luiss delegate for the project of the City of Rome "House of Emerging Technologies", funded with an innovation grant of the Italian Ministry of Economic Development. 

He earned an LL.M. in Government Economic Regulation at NYU School of Law and received his PhD in European and Comparative Public Administration at Sapienza Business School. In 2006-2007 he was the Emile Noël Fellow at NYU School of Law Jean Monnet Center. In 2007-2008 he was visiting scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management of the NYU Wagner School of Public Service.

Christian has published several articles in the field of public and administrative law and, in particular, land use, public goods and the commons, public services and public contracts, urban law and local government. He has authored two books, has co-authored three others. He is completing a book manuscript (co-authored with Sheila Foster) entitled Co-Cities Empowering Equitable and Self-Sustaining Communities Through Land and Resource Stewardship (MIT Press, forthcoming 2021) and a monography The Law of Urban Communities (Jovene, forthcoming 2021).

Iaione’s current research focus is on the governance of the commons, in particular urban commons and knowledge commons, sharing economy, collaborative economy, social innovation, social housing, innovation procurement, AI and public law, public-commons and public-private-commons partnerships.

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Mathew Idiculla is a legal and policy consultant and researcher based in Bangalore, India. He is a visiting faculty at the School of Policy and Governance, Azim Premji University, Bangalore where he teaches the course “Urban Governance in India”. He is also a consultant with the Law Programme of WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing) and the Centre for Law and Policy Research (CLPR), Bangalore. His research interests are broadly in the intersection of law, politics, and policy, with a focus on issues concerning cities and their governance systems.
Over the past ten years, Mathew has engaged with the field of urban law and policy in multiple ways: inter-disciplinary academic research and writing, legal and policy consultancy for government, advocacy with civil society groups and writings in popular media. He has played an active role in urban governance reform and policymaking in Bangalore and led the drafting of the “Greater Bengaluru Governance Bill, 2018” for the Expert Committee on BBMP Restructuring, Government of Karnataka. Mathew is also the founder of an inter-disciplinary discussion forum on urban issues and writes
frequently about various law and policy debates in India in scholarly and popular publications.

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John Infranca is a Professor at Suffolk University Law School, where he teaches courses in property law, land use law, urban law and policy, election law, and law and religion. Professor Infranca is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and of New York University School of Law. Following law school, Professor Infranca served as a law clerk to Judge Berle Schiller of Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and Judge Julio Fuentes of the Third Circuit and worked as a legal fellow at the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, where he focused on land use regulation and affordable housing policy.
Professor Infranca's scholarship focuses on land use regulation, affordable housing , property theory, and law and religion. His article Differentiating Exclusionary Tendencies was selected for presentation at the 2020 Stanford/Harvard/Yale Junior Faculty Forum. The New State Zoning: Land Use Preemption amid a Housing Crisis was selected by the Land Use & Environmental Law Review as one of the three best land use articles of the year. His current research examines regulatory barriers to the development of new forms of housing and the relationship between land use processes, particularly the granting of variances, and the rule of law.

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Dr. Ashley M. Johnson is a Licensed School Social Worker with Shelby County Schools in Memphis Tennessee. She earned her Ed.D from the Department of Education Policy Studies at the University of Memphis. Dr. Johnson has presented at several national conferences. Dr. Johnson's research focuses on the implementation of Social Emotional Learning strategies within the academic environment, the disproportionate disciplinary outcomes of Black girls in the learning environment. Her work has considered public schools, school districts, school discipline, mental health/trauma-informed care in the academic environment, and the school to prison pipeline. In her research, Dr. Johnson has employed qualitative methods. 

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Sahjabin Kabir is an architect, urban designer, development, and humanitarian research consultant. She holds two masters - Design Studies from Harvard University Graduate School of Design (2014) and Governance Studies from University of Dhaka (2018). She completed her B.Arch from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). She completed certificate courses at MIT, TU Delft, MZN International, Oxfam and UK Aid (a six months’ international training on core humanitarian competencies and sphere standards), Water Aid, UN Habitat, UNWOMEN, Aptech and others. She was awarded with travel grants to present at different conferences in Bangladesh, United States, Germany, France and Switzerland with UNESCO, Gruneliga, GRIEF, AWWA and other research organizations. She also participated at the international workshop on post-earthquake emergency response in Nepal under Architecture San Frontiers. Her professional career is imbued with diversified work experiences of more than 11 years that include six years of consultancy services. The accomplishment not only addressed via sectoral experiences but also lensed via diverse stakeholders (e.g., United Nations organizations and other humanitarian agencies- international and local, government organizations, private enterprises, and self-venture) at varied contexts that include emergency response. She has been the national consultant working with the emergency response for UNICEF-HQ, CDA Collaboratives, DARA, HERE-Geneva, BRAC-UNWOMEN, CBM-International, Rooted Impact and UNDP. Her extensive field works associate with but not limited to community outreach, accountability to affected population, grievance monitoring and redress, communication with the communities and feedback mechanism, and inclusive development for diverse group (women, men, adolescent girls and boys, older people, person with disabilities, disadvantaged and minority groups, and the refugees) and others. Sahjabin has been the consultant for the government offices in Bangladesh including the climate change and disaster management department at the Mayor’s office, Dhaka North City Corporation. She also worked for the project on livelihood improvement of women and children in disaster prone coastal areas under National Association for Resource Improvement (NARI). She is the founder of “Breathe” and “Deyalkotha”- a platform for the underprivileged children and women living in the slums and pavements. 

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Rawan Khattab is an architect interested in methods of qualitative and quantitative research in Urban Planning. In addition to urban planning, she is also interested in research related to quantify the qualitative aspects of architecture, design, housing, housing market, space syntax and placemaking in community engagement; researching and questioning the quality of life in the present and future for city planning and how this can be addressed to optimize the spatial practice, and; the urban planning policies and strategies of the city. Holding a Bachelor Degree in Architecture and Master’s Degree in Spatial Planning from German Jordanian University, she currently works as teaching and research assistant at University of Petra at the Department of Architecture.

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Dr. Evaldas Klimas is associate professor at Mykolas Romeris University in Vilnius, Lithuania. He teaches law students Real Estate and Construction law.  He graduated from Vilnius University Law Faculty back in 2005 and successfully defended PhD thesis: “The principle of duty to co-operate, the implementation and significance of this principle in legal contractual construction relations” back in 2011. Fields of research: Territorial planning and construction, Land law, Environmental law, Protection of property rights, Defence of public interest.

Dr. Evaldas Klimas is also a partner at Law firm WALLESS, where he is supervising the Real estate practice group at Vilnius office and is acknowledged practitioner by main directories (Legal500 and Chambers). 

A published author and expert in the real estate sector, Evaldas wrote a number of papers, among which one of the industry’s leading papers in Lithuania – the Commentary on Zoning and Planning Law (2017), which was finalized during his stay in Seattle, USA as Fulbright scholar. 

Dr. Evaldas Klimas is actively participating in the legislature process, related to real estate development; gave lectures and participated in numerous seminars and conferences. The core of his latest research are related to sustainable development principle, and recently – climate change management measures.

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Jonathan Kwik studied international law at the University of Groningen and graduated cum laude in
international and transnational criminal law. He is currently a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Law of
the University of Amsterdam researching conflicts and modern technologies. He has in-depth knowledge in the areas of public international law, international humanitarian law, dynamics of conflict, and conflict-resolution and reconciliation, and has published several articles in both international and local journals on these topics.

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Emile Loza de Siles is Assistant Professor of Law at Duquesne University School of Law. Her scholarship centers on artificial intelligence (AI) and law emphasizing interdisciplinary science and technology topics, social justice, and critical theory.
Emile joined the legal academy in 2019 after sixteen years in intellectual property and technology practice in her firm, Technology Law Group, and in the Office of General Counsel, U.S. Department of Commerce. Her private clients have included HP, Cisco Systems, Accenture, and numerous other technology-driven organizations and innovators.
She clerked for the Honorable Sergio A. Gutiérrez of the Idaho Court of Appeals and the Honorable Sheila F. Anthony of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
Emile holds a technology BS, MBA, and her JD from The George Washington University School of Law. She holds a cybersecurity strategy graduate certificate from Georgetown University and has another in data science underway with Harvard University. 

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Avital Margalit is a senior lecturer at the School of Law, Sapir College. She is a graduate of Tel Aviv University in Sociology and Psychology (B.A) and in Law (LL.B), and a graduate of UC Berkeley Law School (LL.M, J.S.D). Her core teaching and research subjects are social and cultural aspects of property relationships (e.g. housing, urban renewal, cooperative societies and commons), sports law, and the legal history of the Kibbutz. She is the academic supervisor of the Sapir law school's public housing legal aid clinic. She is one of the founders and a board member of the Israeli Association for Distributive Justice.

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Muhammed Martini graduated from Damascus University in 2011 from the Department of Heritage and Archeology, studied a master’s degree in Islamic architecture at Ain Shams University in Egypt in 2013. Then he received a master’s degree in urban development from the Berlin Technical University in 2020. He is a member of the ICOMOS international organization responsible for preserving heritage sites around the world, headquartered in Paris. Mr. Martini has participated in many scientific conferences on urban development, heritage, and refugees. He also participated in documenting the Syrian heritage, in cooperation with a large number of experts from different countries of the world.

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Martin Meyer is a PhD researcher at Technische Universität Berlin since July 2017 and acts as program coordinator for the M.Sc. Urban Development program taking place in Egypt and Berlin. Having gained work experience, with Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading (VPUU) in South Africa, with the German International Development Cooperation (GIZ) in the Land Use and Settlement Program in Lesotho and at the Building, Road, Housing & Urban Development Research Centre (BHRC) in Iran, he is passionate about international urbanism and the global exchange of scientific knowledge and practical experiences. In his research, he focuses on housing provision in Iran theories of urban modernity and modern heritage in the Global South as well as participatory urban governance and planning processes.

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Valentina Montoya-Robledo, S.J.D. (2020) and LL.M. (2013) at Harvard Law School. M.A., LL.B., B.A. at Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá). Administrative Law Professor at Universidad de los Andes. She is Director of the Transmedia Project Invisible Commutes. Her research centers on gender, urban law, local government law, transportation and domestic work. She will present the paper Overlooked Mobility: Time, Finances, and Violence in the Commuting Experiences of Domestic Workers in Bogotá, Medellín, and Sao Paulo.

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Ivan K. Mugabi is currently a Fulltime Lecturer at King Ceasor University, Bunga, Kampala Uganda; he occasionally serves as a Supervisor of Masters Students in Oil and Gas Students at Kampala Petroleum Institute. His education background includes a Master of Philosophy from Cardiff University with the School of Law and Politics, a Human Rights Law from Cardiff University, UK Wales, a Master’s of International Commercial Law (LLM) - University of Glamorgan, UK, Wales, and Bachelor LLB (Hons) from Uganda Christian University: Mukono, Uganda. He likes research and publishing as a means of advancing new epistemological discourses.

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Dr. Steven L. Nelson is an Associate Professor of Education Law & Education Policy at the University of Memphis. He earned his Ph.D from the Department of Education Policy Studies at the Pennsylvania State University and his J.D from the University of Iowa College of Law. Dr. Nelson has published over 30 scholarly articles and book chapters and has presented at over 30 conferences. His research interrogates the intersection of education reform laws and policies and Black urban students, families, and communities. His work has considered (among other things) charter schools and school reform, state takeovers of public schools and school districts, special education law and policy, and school discipline and the school-to-prison pipeline. Dr. Nelson considers himself a law and society scholar: more closely following how law impacts Black urban students, families, and communities than on pure doctrinal work. In his research, Dr. Nelson has employed quantitative, qualitative, and legal research methods. 

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Alberto Nicotina is a PhD Candidate at the University of Antwerp, Faculty of Law and member of both the Government and Law and Politics and Public Governance research groups within the same University. Alberto holds a five-years Master's degree in Comparative, European and Transnational Law from the University of Trento, Italy (2018), obtained after spending study and research periods in Liège, Montpellier and Brussels.

Before joining the University of Antwerp, he was active in legal practice. He served as a trainee lawyer at leading Italian-based international law firms, where his practice focused on Italian and European environmental law.

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Giacomo Pailli (LL.M. NYU; PhD Florence – University of Florence, Adjunct Professor of Comparative Law) is a researcher and adjunct professor of comparative law at the University of Florence. His interests include comparative civil procedure, urban and poverty law.

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Andreas Pandiangan is a senior lecturer of Faculty of Law and Communication of Soegijapranata Catholic University, teaching Political Communication, Communication Audit, and General Election. He is currently a member of Indonesia Honorary Council for General Election Organizers.

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Maria Cristina Pangallozzi is a postdoctoral research fellow in public law at the Department of Law of LUISS Guido Carli. She is a member of the LUISS multidisciplinary team working on the Horizon 2020 European research and innovation project “OpenHeritage” on governance models for urban regeneration through cultural heritage. She obtained her PhD in Administrative Law at the Sapienza University of Rome, during which she was a visiting PhD student at the University of Oxford. She is author of several publications on comparative administrative law, cultural heritage law and museum management.

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Professor Michael Pearl is an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and Professor of Law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. He is a nationally recognized scholar in the fields of water law, climate change law and policy, Indigenous legal/social issues, and statutory interpretation. His research focuses both on distinct concepts within these fields as well as intersectional issues that cross legal fields and social dynamics. He regularly works collaboratively with scientists and scholars in related fields to produce practical and theoretical scholarship. 

Professor Pearl obtained his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley—School of Law. While at Berkeley Law, he was on Law Review and was a research assistant for the late esteemed scholar of Indian Law and statutory interpretation, Professor Philip Frickey. From Berkeley Law, Professor Pearl clerked for the Honorable William J. Holloway Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. After completing his clerkship, Professor Pearl worked at a Washington, D.C. law firm where he exclusively represented Indian tribes and individual Indians in a variety of capacities and in a diverse array of fora. 

Professor Pearl joined the faculty at the University of Oklahoma College of Law in 2020. For the previous six years, he was a member of the faculty at Texas Tech University School of Law. While there, he was the Director of the Texas Tech University School of Law Center for Water Law and Policy. In addition, Professor Pearl was affiliate faculty with the Texas Tech Climate Science Center, where we worked with faculty from a variety of academic departments to address climate change issues at all levels. 

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Professor Tracy Pearl is a nationally recognized scholar on emerging technology and the law. She researches and writes about risk, regulation, and tort law in the areas of driverless vehicles, the Internet of Things, and other new forms of technology. Her scholarship also explores whether and how procedural rules impact due process and how courts treat novel societal issues.
Professor Pearl joined the University of Oklahoma faculty in 2020.  Prior to her arrival, she was a law professor at Texas Tech University where she was a recipient of the Chancellor's Council Distinguished Research Award, the highest research honor awarded within the Texas Tech University System, a President's Excellence in Research Professorship, the Spencer A. Wells Award for Creativity in Teaching, and a Lubbock Chamber of Commerce Twenty Under Forty award.  Professor Pearl started her academic career as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Florida International University College of Law where she was the 2013-14 Professor of the Year as well as the 2013-14 Pioneer Award winner. 

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Marius Pieterse is a professor in the School of Law at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he mostly teaches constitutional and human rights law. His research focuses on urban governance, local government law and the realization of socio-economic rights, specifically in an urban context. Marius is the author of "Rights-based Litigation, Urban Governance and Social Justice in South Africa: The right to Joburg" (Routledge, 2017); "Can Rights Cure? The Impact of Human Rights Litigation on South Africa's Health System"; (PULP, 2014) as well as a large number of peer reviewed academic journal articles on different aspects of rights-based litigation, socio-economic rights, urban governance, the right to health, the right to equality and the relationship between law and urban space. He is joint global coordinator of the International Research Group of Law and Urban Space (IRGLUS).

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Igor Baden Powell holds a MSc in Political and Economic Law candidate and Bachelor of Law (Concentration in Law and Development: Infrastructure, Sustainability and Public Policy), both from Mackenzie Presbyterian University School of Law. He is a lawyer with practice in Privacy and Data Protection, and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional/Europe (CIPP/E) by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). He is co-author of the paper Cities and Facial Recognition: a threat to privacy.

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Shitong Qiao is Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong. In the 2020-2021 academic year, he also serves as the Law and Public Affairs (LAPA) fellow at Princeton University, working on his second monograph related to property, community and democracy in urban China. Professor Qiao was the Ken Young-Gak Yun & Jinah Park Yun Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Duke in Spring 2019 and the inaugural Jerome A. Cohen Visiting Professor of Law at NYU in Spring 2020. Professor Qiao is an expert on property and urban law with a focus on comparative law and China. His first monograph, Chinese Small Property: The Co-Evolution of Law and Social Norms, was published in 2017 by Cambridge University Press, won the inaugural Masahiko Aoki Award for Economic Paper from Tsinghua University and the Research Output Prize from the University of Hong Kong, and was reviewed in leading international and Asian law journals. In dissertation form, it won the Judge Ralph K. Winter Prize (awarded annually to the best student paper written in law and economics at Yale Law School).  He has also published a number of journal articles and book chapters.  His research has been cited by property and urban law theorists, scholars of China studies, and Chinese policy-makers and Supreme People’s Court judges, and has been covered by leading Chinese and English media. Professor Qiao graduated from Wuhan (LL.B.), Peking (MPhil), and Yale (LL.M., J.S.D.) with numerous prizes. Professor Qiao has served as an expert (witness) on Chinese property regime in China, Canada and the U.S.

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Sofia Ranchordás is a Full Professor of European and Comparative Public Law & Rosalind Franklin Fellow at University of Groningen. She conducts research on public law and technology from an interdisciplinary perspective. She is particularly interested in how technology is disrupting traditional legal concepts in administrative law, in particular in the context of local regulation and governance (smart cities) and digital government. She has published extensively on the regulation of the sharing economy, online platforms, online citizen participation, and online rating and reputational mechanisms.  Professor Ranchordás has served as General Editor of the Review of European Administrative Law, and was a Member of the Advisory Board of the Journal Theory and Practice of Legislation. Her academic perspective has been applied as a fellow and visiting professor at law schools in Portugal and Italy.  Her current scholarship can be divided in three strands:  administrative law and digitalization; regulation of online platforms and social media, and; temporary legislation and  constitutional change. For more information see www.sofiaranchordas.com.

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Badrinath Rao is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Asian Studies in the Department of Liberal Studies at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan in the United States. He is also a licensed attorney. In the fall, 2018-19 term, Prof. Rao was the Kosciusko Foundation Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Artes Liberales at the University of Warsaw, Poland.. Prof. Rao obtained his JD from Wayne State University School of Law, Detroit. He earned his PhD in Sociology from the University of Alberta, Canada. Rao’s expertise is in South Asian politics, culture, and society. He also works in the areas of sociology of law and sociology of religion. He lectured and presented papers in several countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Russia, Hungary.

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Nikhil Ravindra completed his M.Sc in Urban Development in 2019 from TU Berlin, Germany with DAAD (German Federal Government) Scholarships securing ‘Urban Development Award’ for a very good Master’s thesis. In 2016, he completed B.Arch from Acharya’s NRV School of Architecture, Visvesvaraya Technological University securing ‘University Third Rank’ and ‘Best Outgoing Student’ awards. He currently works as an Assistant Professor at Dayananda Sagar College of Architecture and has 5+ years’ experience having worked as a Landscape Architect in Zoras, Architectural Consultant in Studio 69 and as an Independent Researcher. His other global experiences include Student Assistant job at Habitat-Unit Germany, Internship at Mimar Group in UAE and participating in internationally funded summer schools/ trainings in South Africa, Bosnia – Herzegovina, Hungary and Romania.

Nikhil, mostly through funding, has presented papers in international conferences held in Belgium, India and Malaysia; and has several research publications. In October 2018, he co-founded a startup project idea ‘MAQAAD’ in Cairo, Egypt, and in May 2020, co-developed ‘CIANKI Associates’ in Bengaluru. His interests are in the fields of urban sociology, governance, environmental design, climate and social entrepreneurship. He currently is working as an Assistant Professor at Dayananda Sagar College of Architecture, Bengaluru, where he teaches Architectural Design, History of Architecture, Sociology & Building Economics, Communication Skills, Model Making, Urban Planning and Research Methods.

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Shubho Roy is a JSD student in law and the Adam Smith Fellow at the University of Chicago. His research interests include the effect of urban governance on the persistence of slums. Mr. Roy earned a BA/LLB in Law from West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences. From 2010-2019, Mr. Roy was a Legal Consultant at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy. As a member of the research team for the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission, he provided research support to one of the largest legislative redrafting projects undertaken by India to revamp the regulation of its financial sector. Prior to his work with the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, Mr. Roy served as a law clerk to a judge at the Supreme Court of India.

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Alessio Sardo is a Researcher at the University of Genova and Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Heidelberg.

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After graduating in political science (Dipl.-Pol.) and law (1st and 2nd state exam) in 1967, 1969 and 1972 at Freie Universität Berlin, Prof. Dr. Rudolf Schäfer has been engaged in different research activities at FU Berlin, Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik (DIfU) etc. In 1982, he was appointed Professor for Administration Science and Public Law at Fachhochschule für Verwaltung und Rechtspflege Berlin (university of applied science). In 1988, he became Professor for Planning and Building Law and Administration at Technische Universität (TU) Berlin after receiving his doctorate (Dr. rer. pol.) from Carl-von-Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg. At TU he has been working as Dean of Faculty of Architecture and then Faculty VI – Planning, Building and Environment of TU Berlin for 21 years (1989-2010). He is the owner and CEO of Forschungsgruppe Stadt & Dorf since 1988 and an active partner of Planungsgruppe Stadt & Dorf since 2000.

Professor Schäfer has more than 150 publications in the fields of planning and building law and administration, urban renewal and urban development. He conducted numerous research projects in cooperation with the German Federal Ministry of Building and Housing and various respective ministries of German states like Bavaria, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony etc. He is active member of German Academy of Urban Design and Spatial Planning, German Academy of Spatial Research and Planning, European Academy of Science and Arts etc.

Presently he is the ‘Study Dean’ of the Urban Development department of TU Berlin Campus El Gouna. Before he had the position of the “Founding Director” for this campus from 2010-2012. In the MENA region, he was the Project Director of a Megacities Project in Iran and co-founded and leaded WANACU and MENASHDA networks of TU Berlin.

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Erin Adele Scharff is an associate professor of law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.  She joined the faculty in 2014.  Previously, she was an acting assistant professor of tax law at New York University School of Law, where she served as an editor of the Tax Law Review.  
Scharff’s scholarship focuses on fiscal federalism, including the allocation of revenue authority between state and local governments, local government law, and state tax law.  Her recent publications have appeared in Stanford Law Review, Georgetown Law Review, New York University Law Review, and the Tax Law Review, among other journals. As an expert on local fiscal authority, Scharff has written several amicus briefs on the legal authority of local governments to raise revenue under state constitutions.    
Professor Scharff is the immediate past chair of the AALS Tax Section.
After graduating magna cum laude from New York University School of Law, she clerked for the Honorable William A. Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. Prior to law school, she worked as a researcher and advocate in Washington, DC. 
In addition to her academic work, Scharff is actively engaged in the Phoenix community and serves chair board of the Phoenix Legal Action Network, a legal services non-profit. She is the mother to three rambunctious children.

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Nadine Schawe studied law at LMU Munich and UNSW in Sydney and completed her legal clerkship at the Munich Higher Regional Court. She then obtained her LL.M. (Masters of Law) in the field of "Intellectual Property Rights and Media Law" at the HU Berlin. Before joining the Weizenbaum Institute, she worked for several years as a lawyer in the fields of IT law, intellectual property and commercial law. Within the Weizenbaum Institute, she is a Doctoral Researcher in the research group "Working and cooperating in the sharing economy".

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Paula Z. Segal is a Senior Staff Attorney in the Equitable Neighborhoods practice of TakeRoot Justice. Prior to joining the TakeRoot Justice team, Paula was the founding director of 596 Acres, Inc., NYC’s community land access advocacy organization, where she developed programs to make public land available for public use and to protect charity-owned properties from foreclosure and eviction.

She is an Ashoka Fellow recognized for building the field of community land access advocacy. Paula has practiced civil rights and freedom of information law at Rankin & Taylor, been a Fellow at the Fordham Urban Law Center and a Supervising Attorney in Fordham’s Community Economic Development Clinic, and was an attorney in the Staten Island Legal Services Disaster Recovery unit after Superstorm Sandy.

Before law school, she taught English to immigrants and refugees at the City University of New York. She graduated from City University of New York (CUNY) Law School and Brown University. Paula came to the United States of America as a refugee in 1985.

Paula is currently a member of the New York City Bar Association’s Real Property Law Committee.

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Prof. Guy Seidman has been on faculty at the Radzyner School of Law since 1999. A graduate of Tel-Aviv University (LL.B., 1989; LL.M. 1995) and Northwestern University of Chicago, Illinois (LL.M., 1997, S.J.D. 1999) Prof. Seidman has visited and taught at various institutions in Israel, Europe and the United States including the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Boston University and the Max Planck Institute at Heidelberg. Prof. Seidman is primarily interested in Administrative law and Comparative law and the cross between the two. A former officer of the Israeli Judge Advocate General`s Corps., Prof. Seidman’s other teaching and research interests include military law as well as medical law. Prof. Seidman has written extensively in his fields of research. Notable recent publications include: "Who Are You, The Israeli Administrative Law? – in View of Daphne Barak-Erez's Book Adminstrative Law" 51 Hapraklit (Israel Bar Association LJ, Hebrew, May 2012) 693-756; The Origins of the Necessary and Proper Clause (co-authored with Prof. Gary Lawson, Boston U.; Geoffrey Miller, NYU; Robert Natelson, U. of Montana) (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and “Is A Flat-Line a Good Thing? On the Privatization of Israel’s Healthcare System” 36 Am. J. L & Med. 452-481 (2010).

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Professor Darien Shanske holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in Rhetoric, an M.A. from McGill University in Philosophy, and a B.A. from Columbia University. Before law school, Professor Shanske worked as a financial consultant to California local governments; after law school, he worked as an attorney in the public finance department of Sidley Austin in San Francisco. Professor Shanske then clerked for Judge Pierre N. Leval of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Professor Shanske’s academic interests include taxation, particularly state and local taxation, local government law, public finance, and political theory, particularly jurisprudence. Some of his current projects are on the local property tax, the state and local fiscal relationship, the fiscal constitution of California, and the role of reciprocity in Aristotle.

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Yael Shmaryahu-Yeshurun is a post-doctoral fellow in the Faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. Yael's research interests focus on spatial policy, urban communities and spatial relations between different ethno-national, class and religious groups. Her research combines theories, concepts and methods from public policy, urban sociology and geography. In her doctoral dissertation, completed in the Department of Administration and Public Policy at the Ben-Gurion University (2020), Yael investigates the connection between Nationalism and Neo-Liberalism in the Israelis’ Settlement Policy in the periphery and contested cities (the case of "urban settlers communities"- Garinim Torani'im and Ayalim Association). She developed the term “State-Led Ethno-Gentrification” to describe the policy and its implications.

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Alessandro Simoni is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences at Università di Bologna. He holds a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences (Università di Bologna, 1999) and M.S. in Geology (Università di Bologna, 1995). Dr. Simoni's research interests include geological and geotechnical characterization of soils, rock masses and complex formations; slope hydrology and hydrogeology; experimental field monitoring of landslides and debris flows; debris flow triggering mechanisms and hazard assessment; slope stability analysis (limit equilibrium and numerical methods); and InSAR techniques for landslide detection and monitoring. In 2017 he received a National Scientific Qualification as Full Professor (04/A3). Dr. Simoni's most recent research projects include work as Associate Investigator on a Gis-based integrated platform for debris flow risk mitigation, monitoring and modelling. Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo (Projects of excellence: 2013-2015), and work as Principal Investigator in the study and management of landslide phenomena along rail routes pertaining to the Bologna compartment and analysis of monitoring data of sensitive areas along high-speed rail lines (RFI Italian Rail Network: 2016-2018).

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Ana Solis holds a Bachelor and a Master degrees Majoring in European and International Law, Specializing in International Economic Law, from the Université de Bordeaux, France. She graduated Summa cum laude and her Master Thesis "China and its rare earths within the WTO” (original in French language) was awarded Best Master Research Thesis. She has been granted excellence scholarships from the Canadian and the French Governments to do research at the International and Transnational Law Center at Université Laval, Canada, in collaboration with the European and International Law Center (CRDEI) at Université de Bordeaux. She is also a graduate from the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Canada; and from the World Trade Institute-University of Bern, Switzerland where she was granted with a scholarship by UNCTAD.
Her fields of interest are: WTO regime, Public Markets, Urbanization, Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, Technical Barriers to Trade, International Standards, Agriculture, Free Trade Agreements, Dispute Settlement, Geopolitical economics and International Investment Law.
Currently, Ana Solis is a candidate to a PhD in Transnational Law and Policy at Yokohama National University (YNU), Japan where she has been granted an excellence scholarship by the Japanese Ministry of Research. Her publications figure at the Yokohama Law Review, the Yokohama Journal of Social Sciences, and at the Journal of European and International Law of the University of Bordeaux (Cahiers CRDEI). She has collaborated as a researcher and foreign trade junior analyst for the UNCTAD and the UNDP and has been a speaker for the Hodogaya Municipal Government of Japan on trade opportunities between Japan and America.
Ana Solis is Professor Assistant at YNU and has been an Invited Lecturer at the Institut Catholique Européen des Amériques (ICEA) as well as Deputy Assistant Professor at Université de Bordeaux. She is a member of the Société Québécoise de Droit International and the Yokohama Law Association. 

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Kenneth Stahl is a Professor of Law and the director of the Environmental, Land Use, and Real Estate Law certificate program at Chapman University Fowler School of Law. He is the author of Local Citizenship in a Global Age (Cambridge University Press 2020), which discusses how the nature of citizenship and the relationship between local and national governments have been transformed by globalization. Professor Stahl's other works have appeared in many journals.  His research combines doctrinal analysis with insights from disciplines including urban sociology, geography, economics, and the humanities.  In 2021, the Fowler School of Law awarded Professor Stahl the Michael Lang Award for Scholarly Excellence. He was also named the Kennedy Professor of Law for 2021.

Before joining Fowler, Professor Stahl spent four years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York. Prior to that, he worked as a Trial Attorney for the United States Department of Justice, Office of Constitutional Torts, and as an Associate at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Arnold & Porter. Professor Stahl earned a B.A. with Highest Honors and Highest Distinction from the University of Michigan, and a JD from Yale Law School. At Yale, he served as a Notes Editor of the Yale Law Journal and an editor of the Yale Journal of Law and The Humanities.

Professor Stahl is also a land use attorney who works to ensure that cities’ land use policies comply with state and federal law, and a board member of People for Housing, Orange County, a chapter of the "Yes In My Backyard" movement that seeks to reform zoning laws to legalize the production of more housing.

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Shai Stern is an associate professor of law at the Bar Ilan University Law School, Israel and serves as the Director of International programs at BIU law. Dr. Stern’s primary research and teaching interests include the philosophical foundations of private law, focusing on the right to property, and the effects of regulatory and other legal mechanisms on the socio-spatial distribution of social and economic burdens in society. Dr. Stern also focus his research on communities and their role within the law. This research aims to explore theories regarding the liberal state treatment of religious, cultural and geographic communities, and equally important, the practical implementation of such theories.

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Elisabetta Tatì holds a  Ph.D. in Law of Global and European markets, University of la Tuscia, Viterbo. She is the author of the book L’Europa delle città. Per una politica europea del diritto urbano (Franco Angeli, Milan, 2020). She also published different articles in the Public Law field, at the National, European and comparative level, as well as in the sociological sector. She had a short-term scholarship at the Max Planck Institute of Heidelberg (2019) and she was visiting scholar at  Fordham University, NYC (2018). She graduated in Political sciences at the University of Roma Tre.

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Professor Geeta Tewari received her B.A. from Cornell University, her J.D. from Fordham Law School, and her M.F.A. in Writing from Columbia University School of the Arts. She teaches and writes as an interdisciplinary legal scholar, writer, and poet in the areas of contract law, professional responsibility, gender and racial equity, and justice. Her most recent publications include Law and the New Urban Agenda (Routledge 2020) with endorsement by UN-Habitat Executive Director Maimunah Mohd Sharif, The Ethics of Gender Narratives for U.S. Corporate Boards [16 N.Y.U. J. L. & B. 221 (2019)], and Formality and Geopolitics, two sociopolitical poems in Michigan Quarterly Review.

Following law school graduation, Professor Tewari clerked for New York State Supreme Court Justice Jaime A. Rios. She thereafter practiced with New York City’s Office of Corporation Counsel, the Washington D.C. Office of the Attorney General, and served as an Administrative Law Judge for the New York State Department of Labor. She is admitted to practice law in New York, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C.

She also served as the Director of the Urban Law Center at Fordham Law School, where she launched the Women in Urban Law Leadership Initiative and collaborated with UN-Habitat on projects focused on urban planning laws. In 2019, she was a Visiting Artist Scholar at the American Academy in Rome, and founded the Narrative Justice Project, with non-profit status through the New York Foundation for the Arts, to support collaboration between artists and lawyers for dialogue vital to justice and humanity.

She has spoken on numerous topics, including feminist lawyering, narrative justice, inclusivity on corporate boards, and equal pay as a human right.

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Fabian Thiel, studied Law at the University of Regensburg and Geography at the University of Hamburg, PhD 2001 at the University of Hamburg, Habilitation 2017 at the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen on the topic of “Legal Geography”. Professional stations among others: HIS Hannover, Environmental Research Center Leipzig-Halle, and integrated expert for the Center of International Migration and Development in Cambodia. From 2011-2016 substitute professor for real estate economics and real estate valuation at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences/Frankfurt am Main. Since 2017 private lecturer at the University of Giessen, Institute of Geography; Venia Legendi in Geography. Since 01.10.2018 Professor for Real Estate Valuation at Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences. Dr. Thiel researches and teaches in the fields of national and international property law, land readjustment, planning law, real estate valuation, land policy, and legal geography.

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Manal Totry-Jubran is senior lecturer (Associate Professor) at the Law faculty - Bar Ilan University. She was a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Law, the Hebrew University. She received her Ph.d. from the Faculty of Law, University of Tel- Aviv. Her dissertation under the supervision of Prof. Yishai Blank, is titled “In the Name of the Diversity Discourse: The Role of the Law in Designing Urban Spatial Segregation on the Basis of Nationally”. She received her LL.M. (Magna cum Laude) from the Faculty of Law, University of Tel- Aviv. Title of Master’s thesis: “Public Participation in the Israeli Planning Law: Wadi Nisnas as a Test Case”. In 2018 she was selected by “Calcalist” newspaper and “Bank Hapoalim” as one of ten Young Promising Arab leaders in the Arab Society. In 2019 she was awarded the “Gorni Prize”, by the Israeli Association of Public Law young researchers for Excellent young researcher in public Law. In 2015 she was awarded the Ma’of scholarship for outstanding Arab students, The Council for Higher Education. In 2019, she received a three years research grant (27,000$) on “Conceptualizing Environmental Justice in the Israeli Legal and Regulative System: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives”, funded by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF). In 2017, she received a research grant (35,000$) on Social Rights in Israel: Distributing Burdens between the state and the Local Government in Supplying Welfare Services and its Effect on the Creation of Social and Economic Gaps between Local Authorities funded by the National Insurance Institute of Israel; a research grant (35,000$) on “Examining Legal and Spatial Aspects Rothschild Foundation Mode of Work” funded by Rothschild Foundation; a research grant (1000$) on “Minority Judge, Judge of Minorities: Salim Joubran” funded by the Center for Jewish and Democratic Law. In 2016 she received a research grant on “The Legal Regulation of Acquisition Groups in Israel”, funded by the Gazit- Globe Real Estate Institution. She attended several local and international conferences and academic workshops.  

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Prof Rebecca Tunstall, Prof Emerita of Housing, University of York: I specialize in research on affordable housing, and have completed work on housing design, space, management, and policy for research councils and numerous national and local government, housing association and NGO clients. I was lecturer in housing and Director of the MSc/Dip Housing at LSE in the 1990s and 2000s, and from 2011-16 was Joseph Rowntree Professor of Housing Policy and Director of the Centre for Housing Policy at the University of York. In 2020 I published The Fall and Rise of Social Housing: 100 years on 20 Estates (Policy Press), as well as articles on housing space inequality, housing benefit and the economic status of social housing tenants. I am currently working on the links between housing and Covid-19 risk and impact.

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Margarita Vladimirova graduated with honors from Samara State University of Economics in 2009, received a scholarship from RUSLEF (Russian United States Legal Education Foundation) and continued her studies in the US, where she received an LL.M. degree and training as a Mediator from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 2012. Upon returning to Russia, Margarita completed her PhD in Civil Law at the Kazan Federal University (2014) where she wrote her thesis on the Status of Mediation Agreements in the System of Civil Relations. Margarita created a Center for Mediation at the Samara State University of Economics in 2013 and published numerous law articles on international commercial arbitration and mediation in the Russian language as well as a book about mediation agreements.

During her studies, Margarita served as an arbitration lawyer for the Russian Author's Society, a legal adviser for the Samara State University of Economics and as an in-house lawyer for a limited liability company “SKB” in Russia. Overall, Margarita had over 10 years’ legal experience before she entered
academia with the position of Associate Law Professor at the Zhejiang Gongshang University Law School in Hangzhou, China. From 2015 to 2020 Margarita taught at one of the first International Law programs for Bachelor degree lawyers in China, where she developed Moot Court, Contract Law, Negotiation and Arbitration, Maritime Law and Russian Law courses for foreign students. In 2019, Margarita became aware of the development of Facial Recognition Technologies and other related practices in ‘smart city' projects around Hangzhou, Shanghai and Chongqing and was eager to understand how these technologies were to be utilized and what legal consequences they would carry. Margarita looked outward for places to receive guidance for her research project and was successfully accepted to Deakin, where she is writing her thesis on the topic: ‘Legal protection of facial identity in the age of facial recognition technology’.

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Astrid Voorwinden, a PhD candidate at University of Groningen, holds a Master in Economic Law (Sciences Po, Paris) and LLM in Law and Digital Technologies (Leiden).  Most recently Astrid taught Europeanization of Public Law and Administrative Law and Market Regulation at University of Groningen Faculty of Law. Astrid's research focuses on the protection of public values in public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the 'smart city' , as well as case studies in four European cities to examine how different partnerships handle values such as transparency, non-discrimination and accountability. Astrid is the 2019 recipient of the Sustainable Society Grant and co-author of "Can we negotiate? Trust and the rule of law in the smart city paradigm" and has addressed varying elements of smart cities at five conferences since 2019. 

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