David Vitale – Co-Principal Investigator

Dr David Vitale leads the UK team. He is Associate Professor at the University of Warwick, School of Law, with interdisciplinary and comparative research interests focusing on public trust in government, public law, and social rights. David has recently published a monograph with Cambridge University Press (“Trust, Courts and Social Rights: A Trust-Based Framework for Social Rights Enforcement”) and has published articles in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Legal Studies, and Global Constitutionalism, among others. He holds law degrees from the UK (LSE), the US (NYU), and Canada (Osgoode), as well as a degree in psychology (University of Toronto). He has also worked as a judicial clerk to the Justices of the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Supreme Court of Israel, has held various research positions globally, and has practised as a litigator in Canada.

Michael Pal – Co-Principal Investigator

Dr Michael Pal leads the Canada team. He is Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, researching primarily the law of democracy, comparative constitutional law, and election law. He is the author of over 27 academic articles and is currently at work on a book manuscript on the comparative constitutional law and politics of election commissions. Michael has been influential on law reform in Canada and internationally, and has advised election commissions around the world. He has a J.D. and doctorate in law from the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, and an LL.M. in Legal Theory from NYU. He has also previously clerked at the Court of Appeal for Ontario and worked in a national law firm in Toronto.

Odile Ammann – Co-Principal Investigator

Dr Odile Ammann leads the Switzerland team. She is Associate Professor at the University of Lausanne, Faculty of Law, Criminal Justice, and Public Administration. Her main areas of research are constitutional and administrative law, public international law, EU law, comparative law, and legal theory. Odile has a monograph forthcoming with Cambridge University Press which compares and critically evaluates the constitutional framework that applies to legislative lobbying in Europe and the United States. She holds a PhD in Law from the University of Fribourg, and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. She has also been a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School, the University of Oxford, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po Paris, and the Georgetown University Law Center.