Emma Ahmed-Rengers

• LLM, University of Cambridge (Queens’ College)
• BSc, University of Amsterdam

I hold a BSc in Politics, Psychology, Law, and Economics (PPLE) from the University of Amsterdam (2017) and an LLM from Queens’ College, the University of Cambridge (2018). During my LLM, I specialised in international human rights law and legal and political theory.

Before starting the PhD, I worked as a junior researcher and academic tutor at the University of Amsterdam. I taught courses on public international law, legal theory, political theory, philosophy of the social sciences, and human rights. My research was on international law and social justice.

To complement my legal training, I spent the first year of my PhD taking courses in Computer Science, specifically focused on machine learning and computer vision.

My research interests include: science and technology studies, critical legal studies, international law, jurisprudence, and political theory.

PhD title

The Responsible Governance of Computer Vision Technologies

Supervisors

Professor Karen Yeung and Dr Hyung Jin Chang

The aim of the field of computer vision is to teach computers how to “see.” My research looks into the potential harms of computer vision technologies, as these new technologies interact with already existing political and legal contexts. Specifically, I am interested in how computer vision technologies can be used in the military context, and how the exercise of teaching computers how to “see” interacts with regimes of seeing under the law of armed conflict.

My research draws primarily on insights from society and technology studies (STS) and critical legal studies (CLS).

• Member of the Society of Legal Scholars
• Co-Lead of the Law and Tech Cluster
• PostMillennial Law Group Steering Committee
• Birmingham Global’s U21 PhD travel scholarship (2020)
• College of Arts and Law PhD scholarship (covers fees and stipend)

Presentations:

• A Multi-Disciplinary Intro to Deepfakes, Law and Tech Cluster, University of Birmingham, November 2020
• Democracy On the Margins of the Market: A Critical Look Into the Privatisation of Cyber Norm Formation, Cyber Norms Conference, The Hague Program for Cyber Norms, November 2020
• The Looming Challenge of Deepfakes: Bridging the Disciplinary Divide, Society of Legal Scholars Conference, September 2020