HIAS Bridges Distinguished 2024

Simon Deakin Professor of Law and Director, University of Cambridge

Research field:Law

I am a professor of law at Cambridge University. My Ph.D. was in labour law, and that continues to be my main interest, but I also teach and research in private law and company law. I am the director of an interdisciplinary research unit which brings together social scientists from several fields. I have collaborated with economists and sociologists in empirical studies which have both a quantitative and a qualitative dimension. Recently I have been researching the relationship between law and artificial intelligence, which is an exciting but also challenging new field.

●What are your current research interests?

Currently, I am researching the implications for law of AI. In this fast-moving field my main concern is the study how legal rules can be represented as data and then analysed using machine leaning and related computational techniques. I am interested in exploring the statistical foundations of machine learning and in how statistics as a field understands causality, which may help us to understand how law approaches the same set of issues. I am interested in exploring how a data-led approach to legal analysis can help us understand the role law plays in constituting economic institutions and behaviour, in labour and other markets.

●What do you enjoy most about research?

The opportunity to be creative and to push forward knowledge and understandings is what attracts people to research, I think. Academic researchersa are fortunate to be able to choose the topics they work on much of the time, although their work can also be channeled by by funding bodies, and should respond to society’s needs. In my research I generally work in a team, often with specialists from other disciplines, and this can be especially rewarding, although it can require a lot of work and also patience!

● What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Finding out new things.

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

The questions I had about my original field, labour law, which I didn’t feel were fully answered by the then state of the art. Also, the example of my mentors.

●Message to young researchers?

Do not be discouraged if you feel that your fellow researchers don’t always understand you or don’t seem to think that your field or approach are interesting. This probably means that you are on the track to finding out something really important!

Maria Lohan Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queen’s University Belfast (UK)

Research field:Social Science and Health

Professor Maria Lohan is Chair in Social Science and Health and UNESCO Chair in Gender Equality at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queen’s University Belfast. She is also Distinguished Visiting Professor at Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Studies (HIAS) at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo Japan.
Professor Lohan’s research focuses on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and gender equality.
Within this field Professor Lohan has advanced a focus on engaging men and boys in fostering SRHR for women and girls, as well as for men/boys. She has focussed on achieving this through co-designing, implementing and evaluating relationship and sexuality education (in schools and in prison settings). This work has a multi-country focus in the UK, Ireland, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. It has included the largest randomised controlled trial ever of a relationship and sexuality education programme and the first trial to include a prospective health economic evaluation.
Professor Lohan works as a consultant to the World Health Organization where she has led systematic reviews of the global evidence on male engagement in SRHR and gender equality. Following compilation of the evidence, Professor Lohan was commissioned by WHO to lead an international team to conduct a global priority setting exercise on ‘Masculinities and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights’. The results were presented to international ministries at the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in New York 2024.
Professor Lohan also works as a consultant to UNESCO and was commissioned by UNESCO in 2023 to compile an overview of the systematic review evidence on comprehensive sexuality education globally. She is a partner in the UNFPA/UNESCO Global Partnership Forum on Comprehensive Sexuality Education. UNESCO recently published a feature interview with Maria on this work.
Professor Lohan has worked closely with policy makers in the UK and Ireland and convened a ‘Six nations policy makers forum on Relationship and Sexuality Education(RSE)’. She has published widely in high rankings international peer-reviewed journals including the BMJ, The Lancet Public Health. She has led over ten international team studies as principal investigator with research funding gained from the National Institute of Health and Care research, the Medical Research Council and Economic cand Social Research Council, amongst others. She has contributed as a team member to many more. Recently, she co-published with HIAS member Assistant Professor Mizanur Rahman in the Lancet Global Health.
She is keen teacher of graduate students and mentor for early career staff. She looks forward to meeting staff and students at HIAS for the duration of her visiting position in 2024; 2025 and 2026.

●What are your current research interests?

Health and Gender Equality , especially Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and especially men’s/boys’ engagement in SRHR

●What do you enjoy most about research?

I enjoy engaging with different perspectives and i especially enjoy learning about multi-cultural and interdisciplinary perspectives.

●What does research mean to you?(In a nutshell)

Finding out what you can, the best way that you can

●What inspired you to become a researcher?

I guess I liked reading and writing – and university life – and I just kept at it. Once you get your PhD, you are qualified, and once you get your first job, you are on your way to a career.

●Message to young researchers

Don’t be afraid of the blank page, it gives you space to start (again).

HIAS Bridges Distinguished 2024

Simon Deakin Professor of Law and Director, University of Cambridge

Simon Deakin Professor of Law and Director, University of Cambridge

Prasada Rao Emeritus Professor, School of Economics, University of Queensland

Prasada Rao Emeritus Professor, School of Economics, University of Queensland

Maria Lohan Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queen’s University Belfast (UK)

Maria Lohan Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queen’s University Belfast (UK)

René Belderbos Full Professor, Faculty of Economics and Business, KU Leuven (Belgium)

René Belderbos Full Professor, Faculty of Economics and Business, KU Leuven (Belgium)