Dr. Carlotta Rigotti is an Assistant Professor at eLaw – Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University. Her research sits at the intersection of law, gender, and technology, where she examines contemporary manifestations of structural and intersectional subordination of women that are technologically facilitated, amplified, or created.

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Dr. Carlotta Rigotti is an Assistant Professor at eLaw – Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University. Her research sits at the intersection of law, gender, and technology, where she examines contemporary manifestations of structural and intersectional subordination of women that are technologically facilitated, amplified, or created.

Her current work focuses on online and technology-facilitated violence against women, platform governance of sexual and intimate content, and diversity bias in AI systems. This research trajectory was sparked in 2018 by the opening of a brothel featuring robotic sex dolls in her Italian hometown, an event that led to her PhD research on the legitimate regulation of sex robotics, defended at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2023. In her doctoral work, she examined how law and technology co-shape social constructions of gender and sexuality, engaging with longstanding feminist and policy debates on gender equality and sexual autonomy.

Academic collaboration is central to her scholarly approach, both as a means of fostering multidisciplinarity and of enhancing the societal relevance of legal research. During her PhD, she spent a year as a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security, and Society and at Durham Law School. Since then, she has published extensively with scholars across different universities and disciplines, as well as with practitioners, enabling her to translate theoretical insights into policy- and practice-oriented outcomes.

In her postdoctoral research at eLaw (2023–2025), she worked closely with Eduard Fosch-Villaronga on the Horizon Europe BIAS project, employing qualitative methods - including surveys, interviews, and co-creation workshops - to examine evolving understandings of fairness and diversity in AI systems in the labour market, as well as to assess the legal and ethical requirements for trustworthy technologies. In parallel, she served as the gender-based violence expert in the NWA RESOCIAL project on vulnerability in social media. Building on her experience in project management since 2019, she is currently also involved in the Horizon Europe AI:Liner project on trustworthy AI for Europe’s water infrastructure and the ERC-funded Safe and Sound project, which focuses on developing evidence-based policies for safe and socially responsible robotics.

Her academic research is grounded in legal practice. During her legal training, she worked in a criminal law firm in Turin on cases involving female genital mutilation and sexual exploitation. This experience sharpened her feminist legal perspective, strengthened her ability to engage with sensitive issues, and highlighted the challenges of translating legal norms into lived realities. To bridge academia and society, she has collaborated extensively with international organisations, including the Platform of Independent Mechanisms on Discrimination and Violence against Women, the Council of Europe, the United Nations Population Fund, the European Parliament, the International Labour Organization, and the Asian Development Bank. Equally central to her work are continuous collaborations with civil society organisations and transnational networks, such as HateAid, Les Trois Sex*, Differenza Donna, the Intimate Tech Coalition, and OffLimits, through which she ensures that her research remains responsive to lived experiences and contributes to meaningful social change.

Alongside her research and external engagement, she is deeply committed to teaching and curriculum development. She regularly delivers guest lectures on gender and technology in courses including Law and AI, Human Rights in the Digital Age, and Human–Robot Interaction. For several years, she coordinated the Honours Academy pre-university course Law, Technology, and Society, and in 2024 she designed and launched the undergraduate Honours Academy course Law, Gender, and Technology at Leiden University, offering an interdisciplinary exploration of gendered power dynamics in digital and AI-driven societies.

Publications