Gabrielle Watson

Gabrielle Watson LLB (Edinburgh) MSc, MA, DPhil (Oxford) is a specialist 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. Since 2023, she has been Director of the LLM in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, and of the Empirical Legal Research Network.

Gabrielle is the author of the award-winning Respect and Criminal Justice (OUP 2020) and co-Editor of Sentencing, Public Opinion, and Criminal Justice (OUP 2025). With Professor Julian V Roberts KC (Hon), she is Series Editor of Palgrave Studies on Sentencing. Launched in Spring 2025, this series is the first of its kind in the field, commissioning works on sentencing of cross-jurisdictional significance. Gabrielle's 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 to the Criminal Courts Rules Council for a three-year term. She is Advisor to the Sentencing Academy, a London-based organisation dedicated to developing expert understanding of sentencing in England and Wales and informing public debate. She has been engaged as a criminal justice expert for BBC News, BBC Radio, BBC World Service, Times Radio, and other major media outlets. 

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