Welcoming New Members to the Centre

Technology Law, Ethics and Policy
Aerial view of the University of Ottawa Campus and the Rideau Canal.
Dr. Florian Martin-Bariteau, director of the Centre for Law, Technology and Society, is delighted to announce the appointment of Dr. Céline Castets-Renard (Civil Law Section) and Prof. Vivek Krishnamurthy (Common Law Section) as Faculty members, as well as of Dr. Karine Gentelet (UQO) as an Associate Member.
Céline Castets-Renard, Vivek Krishnamurthy and Karine Gentelet.

The Centre for Law, Technology and Society is the leading Canadian research group in law, ethics and policy of technology. In welcoming Dr. Millar, the Centre strengthens its policy and technology expertise. It now includes 23 full-time regular professors – from the Faculty of Arts, Engineering, Law, and Social Sciences – and 9 associate members teaching and researching law and policy in the fields of technology, innovation, security, privacy, information, communication, intellectual property, science, and traditional knowledge.

About the New Faculty Members

Dr Céline Castets-Renard just joined the University of Ottawa as a Full Professor within the Faculty of Law, Civil Law Section. Her research focuses on digital world and artificial intelligence law and regulation from the impact of technology on contracts and civil liability to intellectual property, personal data protection, electronic commerce, ethical issues, for instance related to the regulation of autonomous cars, predictive policing and cybersecurity.  She published widely on those topics, and notably, in 2009, one of the first French book on Internet law, and presented her research at several venues around the world.

Prior to her appointment at the University of Ottawa, Dr. Castets-Renard was a professor at Université Toulouse Capitole  in France since 2012, where she was previously a Maître de conférences (Associate Professor) in Private Law from 2002 to 2012. In 2011-2012, she was Maître de conférence (Associate Professor) at the University of New Caledonia where she has conducted research on the protection of Indigenous knowledge. In 2015, she was appointed Junior Member of the prestigious Institut universitaire de France. This five-year appointment allowed her to focus on her research program around the regulation of the digital sphere, but also to do a research trip to the United States at Fordham Law School where she was a Fulbright Scholar, and then at Yale University as Internet Society Project Fellow in 2018-2019. She will continue to be an Adjunct Professor at Fordham Law School.

Prof. Vivek Krishnamurthy just joined the University of Ottawa as the inaugural Samuelson-Glushko Assistant Professor of Law within the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section, and new director of the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC). His teaching, scholarship, and clinical legal practice focus on the complex regulatory and human rights-related challenges that arise in cyberspace. He advises governments, activists, and companies on the human rights impacts of new technologies and is a frequent public commentator on emerging technology and public policy issues. Along with his former colleagues at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center, Prof Krishnamurthy is the author of a landmark study for Global Affairs Canada that evaluates the risks and opportunities for human rights that artificially intelligent systems present.

Prof Krishnamurthy was previously the Assistant Director of Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic and Counsel in the Corporate Social Responsibility Practice at Foley Hoag LLP. He is a Rhodes Scholar and clerked for the Hon. Morris J. Fish of the Supreme Court of Canada upon his graduation from Yale Law School. Prof Krishnamurthy is currently a Senior Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, an Affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and a Senior Associate of the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

About the New Associate Member

Dr. Karine Gentelet is an Associate Professor of Sociology within the Department of Social Sciences at the Université du Québec en Outaouais, and the director of the CIERA-UQO group at the Centre interuniversitaire d’études et de recherches autochtones.  Her research interests and publications focus on the recognition of Indigenous Peoples' rights, digital technology and artificial intelligence in the service of social justice, the ethics of research in Indigenous contexts, and the social responsibility of researchers.

Dr. Gentelet is a researcher at the Cyberjustice Laboratory where she is leading a research project on the empowerment of marginalized populations by artificial intelligence. She is also a researcher at OBVIA (Observatoire international des impacts sociétaux de l’intelligence artificielle et du numérique) and is co-responsible for education and capacity working group. Finally, Dr. Gentelet is strongly committed to the promotion and defense of human rights, including the rights of Indigenous Peoples to Amnesty International since 2007.