Francesca Bignami

Professor Francesca Bignami is an internationally recognized scholar in the field of comparative law, with a focus on administrative law, data privacy law, and the law of the European Union. She is the author of Comparative Law (Foundation Press, 2026), editor of EU Law in Populist Times (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and co-editor of Comparative Law and Regulation (Edward Elgar, 2016). Her research has been published in the American Journal of Comparative Law, the Harvard International Law Journal, the Oxford Handbook on Digital Constitutionalism, and many other law reviews and edited volumes.

Before coming to GW Law, Professor Bignami was Professor of Law at Duke Law School, where she taught from 2000 to 2008, and where she also served as the Director of the Duke University Center for European Studies. In 2006, she was a Visiting Professor and John Harvey Gregory Lecturer on World Organization at Harvard Law School. Professor Bignami has also taught at the European University Institute, the University of Rome "La Sapienza," the Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali (LUISS), and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research has been supported by the Fulbright Program and the German Marshall Fund.

After graduating from Yale Law School, she clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams, US Court of Appeals, DC Circuit, and she then served as a stagiaire for Advocate General Philippe Léger of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

Professor Bignami is an elected titular member of the International Academy of Comparative Law. She serves on the Executive Editorial Board of the American Journal of Comparative Law and on the Advisory Board of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.