Emma Semaan

Emma Semaan is a DPhil candidate at the Faculty of Law and a member of Exeter College. 

Her research interests primarily focus on the regulation of technology and digital platforms from a holistic and comparative perspective. Her MPhil thesis was awarded with distinction at Mansfield College in Oxford. It examined the use of co-regulatory models for digital regulation in the European Union, and developed a comparative analysis to the American paradigms for technological regulation. Her current doctoral project builds on this work in order to better understand the future of digital regulation for the United States and European Union. She is supervised by Professor Justine Pila. 

Emma has most recently taught with the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), under Professor Sandra Wachter in her course on the Technology and Regulation. This graduate-level course offered students from diverse educational and practical backgrounds a comprehensive perspective on the regulatory space of various issues related to digital technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence and algorithmic discrimination. During her MPhil, Emma served as the Teaching Assistant for the BCL/MJur course Law & Computer Science, jointly offered by the Law Faculty and the Department of Computer Science. This course intersects at the boundaries of both disciplines and provides the opportunity to better understand how law and computer science can be used in conjunction with each other.

Before her time at Oxford, Emma lived and worked in Washington, DC, where she earned her undergraduate degree and certificate from American University in the interdisciplinary study of Law, Economics, and Government. During this time, she worked at the Aspen Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program as well as other non-profits dedicated to promoting social, political, and economic equity.