Gabrielle Watson

Gabrielle Watson LLB (Edinburgh) MSc, MA, DPhil (Oxford) is a legal scholar specialising in criminal law and justice. At Edinburgh Law School, she is the recipient of the Chancellor's Fellowship for ‘cutting-edge interdisciplinary research and innovation’ and ‘a vision for future leadership’ in her field.

Gabrielle is the author of the award-winning Respect and Criminal Justice (OUP 2020) and Editor of Sentencing, Public Opinion, and Criminal Justice: Essays in Honour of Julian V Roberts (OUP 2025). Her research has been supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, and the John Fell Fund of the University of Oxford. She has held Visiting Fellowships at the Cambridge Centre for Criminal Justice (2019, 2021), Downing College, Cambridge (2021), and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law in Freiburg, Germany (2023).

In 2024, Gabrielle was appointed by the Lord Justice General of Scotland to the Criminal Courts Rules Council for a three-year term. She also acts as Advisor to the Sentencing Academy, a London-based organisation dedicated to developing expert understanding of sentencing in England and Wales and informing public debate. 

Gabrielle was formerly Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Faculty of Law and at Christ Church, Oxford (2017-19) and Shaw Foundation Fellow and Tutor in Law at Lincoln College, Oxford (2019-23). She remains affiliated to the Faculty as a Research Associate of the Centre for Criminology, where she is a regular visitor.