Tuğba Başaran Akmazoğlu is a Ph.D. candidate in Law at the University of Ottawa Centre for Law, Technology and Society, under the supervision of Prof. Jennifer A. Chandler.
Tuğba Başaran Akmazoğlu’s research delves into the legal and ethical governance of emerging technologies, with a particular emphasis on brain-computer interface (BCI)-controlled prostheses and the evolving boundaries of the human body as they integrate with progressively advanced smart prostheses. Her doctoral research project centers on the co-constitution of humans and technology, exploring the individual construction of self and systematizing law's conceptualization and ontology creation processes. The project aims to anticipate the future modus operandi of law in the context of liminal spaces comprising human-technology symbioses, based on law’s past practices. Her research interests encompass AI ethics and governance of AI, data protection, privacy, cybersecurity, algorithmic surveillance, and algorithmic decision-making systems under the fundamental/human rights frameworks.
Tuğba Başaran Akmazoğlu is also a contributing member of the Hybrid Minds research project team, a German-Swiss-Canadian collaboration funded through the ERA-Net NEURON program. The project aims to establish a unified theoretical approach to the ethical-legal assessment of intelligent neuroprostheses. This approach is informed by the experiences and perspectives of users and by dialogue with the neuroengineering community and other key stakeholders.
Tuğba Başaran Akmazoğlu holds a law degree from Ankara University Law School. For several years, she worked as an attorney-at-law at leading law firms providing litigation and consultancy services in the fields of corporate and commercial law. She received her LL.M. degree with a specialization in European Union Law from KU Leuven as a recipient of the Jean Monnet Fellowship of the European Commission. She also holds a double degree LL.M from the University of Oslo and Leibniz University of Hanover within the framework of the European Legal Informatics Study Program (EULISP) in IT Law (Magna Cum Laude). She wrote her master’s theses on tying agreements in EU competition law, and the regulation of civil law liability of autonomous service robots, respectively.