Assoc. Prof Niovi VAVOULA

Niovi Vavoula is Associate Professor and Chair in Cyber Policy at the University of Luxembourg, FDEF, Department of Law, funded by the Ministry of Foreign and International Affairs, Directorate of Defence. Since 2014, she also serves as Associate Editor of the New Journal of European Criminal Law.

She has conducted extensive research on topics relating to the human rights and rule of law challenges posed by the use of new technologies in the fields of migration and law enforcement. In particular, her primary field of expertise is on the privacy and data protection challenges stemming from the digitalisation of EU immigration control, with insights into international and national initiatives, publishing a monograph entitled Immigration and Privacy in the Law of the European Union – The Case of Information Systems (Brill Nijhoff, 2022). Niovi has also researched on the fundamental rights challenges posed by the establishment of various avenues of processing of personal data for law enforcement purposes. Besides that, she has published extensively on the use of AI in these fields and the fundamental rights challenges coming along with it.

In addition to her monograph, Niovi has published more than 80 contributions in her fields of expertise, presenting many articles in peer-reviewed journals (e.g. European Law Journal, European Journal of Migration and Law, European Public Law). She regularly provides expert advice to EU institutions and agencies (e.g. European Parliament, EU Fundamental Rights Agency), and civil society organisations (e.g. CEPS, ECRE) in her areas of specialisation.

She has received a number of awards and grants. Among them, she has been awarded for the project ‘EU/UK Digital Regulation and Transatlantic Data Transfers’, organized by the Global Policy Institute of the Queen Mary University of London and CEPS (December 2021). Also, she has been awarded, by the Society of Legal Scholars – Research Activities Fund, for a study of AI used for immigration in the US and Canada (April 2021).

Before her appointment in February 2024, she was a Senior Lecturer (2022-2024) in Migration and Security at the School of Law of Queen Mary University of London, where she taught Criminal, AI and Migration Law. Niovi has also been a Teacher at the LSE – London School of Economics and Science (part time, 2017-2018) and worked as a legal intern at Eurojust in the Hague (2012), at the Greek Council for Refugees in Athens (2011-2012) and at a private Athenians law firm (2009-2010).

Niovi received a Ph.D. (2017) with a thesis on immigration and privacy in the law of the European Union at the Queen Mary University of London. She holds a LLM in European Law (2011) from the same University, and an LLB from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She has been a visiting scholar at ULB – Université Libre de Bruxelles (2014), George Washington University (2022) and EUI – European University Institute (2022) (SLS Grantee).