I am an assistant professor at the Institute for Information Law with a background in Political Science (BSc.), Philosophy (BA., MA., both cum laude), and Law (PhD, cum laude). My research is centered around the question of how to understand and normatively evaluate attempts to influence behavior in and through digital choice environments. In my work I try to use ethical theory to inform legal theorizing and interpretation.

In my current 3-year long research project on manipulation I investigate the mismatch between our theories of manipulation and their new domain of application, i.e. digital environments. Our current theories of manipulation are based on an older interpersonal model of manipulation. The characteristics of interpersonal, analogue manipulation do not scale up well to online context where manipulation happens in a much more impersonal manner and at scale. I try to describe the mismatch between theory and practice in more detail, formulate better theoretical (practice-informed) understandings of online manipulation, and use these insights to inform legal thinking about manipulation (e.g. in the context of the Digital Services Act and the AI Act where manipulation is mentioned but never defined).

I completed my PhD at the Institute for Information Law and Department of Philosophy of the University of Amsterdam. My dissertation, Between Empowerment and Manipulation: The Ethics and Regulation of For-Profit Health Apps, combines ethical and legal approaches. Building on theories of autonomy, vulnerability, trust, and manipulation I try to show how ongoing commercial relations between health apps and their users come with a promise of user empowerment, but also with an almost inevitable risk of manipulation. I propose reinterpretations of key concepts in the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive to help address the manipulative potential of for-profit health apps. During my PhD, I was a visiting PhD researcher at the Digital Life Initiative (Cornell Tech).