Donatella CASABURO

Donatella Casaburo is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Luxembourg, Faculty of Law, Finance and Economics (FDEF), and at the KU Leuven Centre for IT & IP Law (CiTiP).

Donatella’s primary research interests include hybrid threats and warfare, the ethical and legal implications of the use of artificial intelligence in the security domain, disinformation, cybersecurity, privacy, and data protection.

Her doctoral research, titled “European Union v. Hybrid Threats: Repurposing the EU Legal Framework to Counter Hybrid Threats?”, investigates whether the current EU secondary legislation on disinformation, cybersecurity, and cybercrime can be repurposed to counter hybrid threats. The project aims to identify potential legislative gaps and develop normative recommendations.

At the University of Luxembourg, Donatella has been coaching the students participating in the Price E. Monroe Media Law Moot Court Competition. Alongside her academic activities, Donatella provides professional training on AI and data protection for public authorities and private entities.

Donatella’s research has been published in international and European academic journals, including AI and Ethics, European Data Protection Law Review (EDPL), Journal of AI and Regulation (AIRe), and Journal of Intellectual Property, Information Technology and E-Commerce Law (JIPITEC). She has presented her work at more than twenty international conferences, including as keynote speaker.

Donatella’s research has been awarded an AFR Individual PhD Grant by the Luxembourg National Research Fund and the 2025 Pierre Werner Scholarship by the Fondation Pierre Werner.

Before joining the University of Luxembourg, Donatella contributed to several EU-funded projects, leading their ethical and legal research activities. Within the H2020 project ALIGNER [Artificial Intelligence Roadmap for Policing and Law Enforcement], she developed the ALIGNER Fundamental Right Impact Assessment, the first AI Act-compliant FRIA templates for law enforcement AI. In the HE project VANGUARD [adVANced technoloGical solutions coupled with societal-oriented Understanding and AwaReness for Disrupting trafficking in human beings], she focused on identifying ethical and legal requirements for the development and deployment of AI systems and training materials to strengthen the fight against human trafficking. Currently, Donatella sits in the advisory boards of various EU research projects.

Donatella holds a cum laude Advanced LL.M. in Intellectual Property and ICT Law from KU Leuven, and a cum laude Master’s degree in Law from the University of Trieste. Her Master’s dissertations addressed the controllership of personal data within the Real-Time Bidding ecosystem (later published in JIPITEC), as well as the relationship between UN and EU counter-terrorism measures and the right to privacy and data protection. During her studies, she was a Visiting Student Researcher at the Erik Castrén Institute of the University of Helsinki Faculty of Law.