The Common Law Section is pleased to welcome Professor Thompson, a globally- recognized scholar in the field of law and technology, as the newest member of our faculty and the Centre for Law, Technology and Society.
Professor Thompson’s teaching and research interests sit at the intersection of technology, law, and politics, with a focus on the regulation of technological platforms, privacy, data governance, and artificial intelligence.
“It is a true privilege to be joining the Common Law Section and the Centre for Law, Technology and Society at uOttawa,” says Professor Thompson. “This is a unique place among world-leading institutions in my field of research. I am thrilled to work alongside such a brilliant and cohesive community, of great scholars and great people, whose impactful work addresses themes that truly make a difference.”
Professor Thompson holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Oxford’s Oxford Internet Institute, where he completed his thesis on the concept of neutrality in technology law and politics. This work, supported by a full scholarship from Brazil’s CAPES Foundation and ranked first nationally in the area of law, continues to inform his research today. He also holds an LLM in Law and Technology from the University of Ottawa—making this a return to familiar ground—and an LLB and Post-Graduate Diploma in Intellectual Property Law from PUC-Rio in Brazil.
Prior to joining the University of Ottawa, Professor Thompson served as a full-time faculty member at the University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Law, where he played leadership roles as Acting and Deputy Director of both the Law and Technology Centre and the Master of Laws in Technology and Intellectual Property Law. There, he received the Faculty Research Output Prize and secured multiple competitive research grants, including from Hong Kong’s Chief Executive’s Policy Unit. His recent report, “Standards Setting, National Security and the Responsibility of Technological Platforms in Hong Kong,” was published by the Hong Kong government.
Professor Thompson is also deeply involved in international scholarly communities. He has held visiting fellowships at prestigious research institutes in Hamburg and Amsterdam and has presented his work in over a dozen jurisdictions. His research has appeared in leading journals and has been cited with approval by the Brazilian Supreme Court in landmark constitutional decisions.
Beyond academia, Professor Thompson brings a wealth of practical legal experience from Brazil, where he practiced technology law in both private and government roles. Notably, he served as General Counsel for the Brazilian Information Technology Institute under the Office of the President of Brazil.
As a member of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Platform Governance Research Network, a founding member of its Steering Committee, and an Advisory Board Member to the European Network of Excellence in Internet Science, Professor Thompson continues to shape conversations around the regulation of digital platforms, privacy and Internet governance on the global stage.
Join us in welcoming Professor Thompson to Fauteux. We look forward to the contributions he will make to our community and to the broader field of law and technology.