Professor of Law
Francesca Bignami joined the Law School faculty in 2000. Her research focuses on rights and democracy in the European Union and comparative public law. She is the author of numerous articles on comparative privacy law, comparative administrative law, and rights and accountability in global governance. She is currently serving as the Director of the Duke University Center for European Studies.
In 2006-2007, Professor Bignami was a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and Boston College Law School. She has also taught in the Academy of European Law (hosted by the European University Institute), in the Masters Program on Public Administration at the University of Rome "La Sapienza," and at the Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali in Rome, Italy. In 2002-2003, she was the recipient of senior research support from the German Marshall Fund. In 2005-2006, she was a visiting scholar at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University.
Professor Bignami received her A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges and her M.Sc. from Oxford University. She then served for one year in the European Commission in Brussels where she worked on Community research and development policy. In 1996, she graduated from Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams, U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, and then served as a stagiaire for Advocate General Philippe Léger of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. In 1998, she was a Fulbright Scholar at the European University Institute, after which she worked in private practice in Washington, D.C., specializing in international trade.
Professor Bignami serves as Chair of the Rulemaking Advisory Group of the ABA Project on EU Administrative Law and as a member of the academic advisory board of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. She is fluent in Italian and proficient in French.