International award for thesis
Alumna Dr Janis Wong has been awarded the Stefan Rodotà Award 2023 for best PhD thesis on data protection by the Council of Europe Committee of Convention 108.
Janis completed her thesis titled 'Co-creating data protection solutions through a commons' in 2022, supervised by Dr Tristan Henderson from the School of Computer Science and Professor Kirstie Ball from the School of Management. The research was funded through the St Leonard's Interdisciplinary Scholarship in a collaboration between St Leonard's College and the Schools of Computer Science and Management.
During her studies at St Andrews, Janis was affiliated to the Centre of Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy (CRISP). Janis's research aimed to create a socio-technical data commons framework that helps data subjects protect their personal data.
Janis said: “I am delighted to receive this award in recognition of my research on data protection and the commons. I greatly enjoyed my time as a PhD researcher at St Andrews and look forward to presenting my work during the plenary session at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg later this year.”
“We are incredibly proud of Janis for winning this award. It is distinctive that a St Andrews PhD student was able to win an international law award despite our lack of a dedicated law school.”
Janis is currently a post-doctoral research associate at The Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national artificial intelligence and data science institute, where her research focuses on data protection, ethics and governance in the ethics theme of the public policy programme. Her ongoing work includes formalising methods that facilitate participatory data governance processes and support community-driven, co-created, collaborative data protection solutions and data stewardship in areas such as artificial intelligence, children’s rights, healthcare, real estate, and fundamental rights and freedoms.
The Stefano Rodotà Award is granted by the Committee of Convention 108 annually on 28 January, which is Data Protection Day. It is awarded in honour and memory of the leading Italian law professor and politician Stefano Rodotà, who worked throughout his life to promote fundamental rights, particularly for the development and implementation of the right to data protection in Europe, leaving an indelible mark on the framing of European policy in this field.
