A front-row view on today’s major challenges: Corinna Coupette bridges law and technology

Corinna Coupette (they/she) has joined Aalto University as an assistant professor of computer science this autumn. Coupette has a dual background in computer science and law from their native Germany.

Coupette develops computational methods to study legal phenomena. They are broadly interested in how law works – how it co-evolves with technology, how legal systems shape and are shaped by socio-ecological systems, and how the people making, implementing, enforcing, and adjudicating legal rules interact. And they explore how computer scientists can integrate legal knowledge to build systems that are responsible by design. 

‘I seek to bridge the gap between computer science and law from both sides of the aisle,’ Coupette characterises the nature of their work.

Coupette’s research ties into some of the hottest topics in the field of technology, and artificial intelligence in particular, today.

‘We currently have what could even be called a competition between law and technology,’ they explain, describing a situation in which technology increasingly rivals law in its behavior-steering effects, and lawmakers struggle to shape the rules of the game or safeguard human and civil rights. An example of this is the European AI Act, which regulates the use and development of artificial intelligence.

The problem is that most people trying to navigate the new realities created by technological progress understand either the legal realm or the technological one, but not both. Coupette has a unique position at the crossroads.

A story of emancipation

Coupette’s road to Aalto, and to computer science generally, has been all but straight.

‘My high school was an all-girls catholic school in western Germany. In those years, I absorbed the idea that there are female things to do and male things to do. So my brother was the natural-sciences guy and I was the languages-and-arts girl, and that’s how we internally split the giftedness’.

Choosing a career path wasn’t easy, but they initially decided to pursue law.

‘It appeared to connect my passions for language, for mathematics, for logical reasoning, for justice. Seemed like a fair choice.’

At Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, Coupette focused on the foundations of law, taking a bird's-eye view on legal systems and their connections to other fields, such as technology, philosophy, and economics. Coupette eventually continued on to a PhD in law at the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance in Munich, knowing that they loved research – and buying themselves some time to figure out what they really wanted to do.

They also started studying computer science on the side. This created unexpected synergies with their PhD thesis on legal network science, and it turned out to be a whole lot of fun.

‘Doing these two things at the same time just rewired everything in my brain. I was super busy but very balanced and happy. This feeling of scientific freedom is something I will always aspire to,’ they describe.

Coupette ended up continuing all the way to a second PhD in computer science, which they completed at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics five years after their first doctorate. Their research centred on method development, exploring how to represent real-world phenomena as graphs and networks and utilising data mining and machine learning to understand relational data. Today, their research combines the skills and expertise gained in both of their PhDs.

‘One way to view my trajectory is as a journey of breaking free from a very gendered perspective of the world. It took me years to recognize that I could also pursue a technical path’.

The right kind of energy

Coupette first visited Aalto toward the end of their second PhD and discovered that the Department of Computer Science aligned well with their research interests. But there were other compelling reasons that drew them to Aalto as well.

‘When I visited, I felt a dynamic, entrepreneurial, and artistic energy here. I thought, this is an institution I can truly connect with and feel proud to represent, as I tend to strongly identify with where I work’.

The collaborative opportunities also left an impression.

‘There are so many connections to other schools—I’ve already been in touch with colleagues at the School of Business and at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture. I think it’s beautiful that you can genuinely collaborate across disciplinary boundaries here’.

Corinna Coupette leads the Telos Lab that conducts research in the intersection of law, computer science, and complex systems. Coupette's personal website can be found here.