Dr Olivia Hamlyn was appointed Lecturer in Law at Birkbeck in September 2019. Prior to joining Birkbeck, Olivia was a Lecturer at the University of Leicester, having completed a PhD at University College London, supported by the Economic and Social Research Council. In 2013, she completed a training contract at Clifford Chance LLP.
Dr Olivia Hamlyn’s research sits in the broader fields of environmental law and law and technology. She completed a doctoral thesis on the EU’s regulation of technologies that pose risks to the environment and human health, focusing in particular on regulatory decision-making regarding pesticides and synthetic biology. Since completing her PhD, she has published further on EU pesticides regulation, including a report on the implementation of the EU’s Plant Protection Product Regulation 2009 for the European Parliamentary Research Service.
Olivia’s work draws heavily on research in science and technology studies on risk, innovation and public engagement with science and research in political science on governance and regulatory theory. She has particular interests in transparency and public participation in decision-making, as well as innovation governance and innovation policy and how these interact with the law and regulation. Her current research relates to the intersection between the economic and the environmental and the role of imagination in shaping environmental law.
