As of June 1st 2022, Ola is affiliated with the Montaigne Centre for Rule of Law and Administration of Justice of Utrecht 木瓜福利影视 as a PhD candidate. Her doctoral research focuses on the legal regulation of algorithmic decision-making processes conducted by administrative authorities and is supervised by Professor Nadya Purtova and Professor Rob Widdershoven. For this project, she combines empirical, doctrinal, and theoretical research methods to analyse:
(1) how administrative decision-making changes when complex algorithms are employed,
(2) in which ways existing regulation, i.e. Dutch and European constitutional and administrative law, data protection law, the EU AI Act, and the AI treaty of the Council of Europe, insufficiently accounts for the changing socio-technical context as described in (1), and
(3) how insights from legal regulatory theory and law & technology theory can help recontextualising existing regulation as described in (2) with the purpose of offering legal protection to citizens in the algorithmic decision-making context.
Ola presents her research results at (inter)national conferences and summer schools. She actively engages with the (inter)national constitutional and administrative law community as well as the international data protection and law & technology community. Together with Professor Anne Meuwese, she organizes monthly seminars at the intersection of constitutional and administrative law & AI. Ola is also a guest lecturer for the purpose of posteducational seminars.
Furthermore, Ola is committed to bringing in her academic knowledge for the benefit of society. For example, she was previously affiliated with the Dutch non-profit organization Stichting Algorithm Audit as a core team member and currently as a member of the advisory board. Together with her colleagues at Stichting Algorithm Audit, Ola conducted an audit commissioned by DUO, the Dutch administrative authority allocating student benefits. More concretely, the audit concerned the algorithmic detection process regarding the misuse of college benefits and resulted in the report 鈥楶reventing prejudice鈥�.
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Ola Al Khatib holds an honours BA in 'Liberal Arts & Sciences: Global Challenges' and an LLB from Leiden 木瓜福利影视 College The Hague respectively Leiden Law School. After having completed an LLM in Administrative and Constitutional Law from the latter in 2020 (cum laude), Ola embarked on a postgraduate LLM at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). At the LSE, she specialised in European public law as well as the (comparative) theory and philosophy of law (with distinction).
During her studies, Ola worked and interned in both the public and private sector, e.g. at the Dutch Permanent Representation to the Council of Europe and in the administrative and international law practices of multiple (international) law firms. In addition, she worked as a junior lecturer in constitutional and administrative law at Leiden Law School.
After her studies, Ola continued working at the department of constitutional and administrative law of Leiden Law School, this time as junior researcher and lecturer. In this capacity, she was involved in the coordination and teaching of bachelor and master courses. In addition, she assisted Professor Anne Meuwese with the research for her report on an EU digital administrative act (commissioned by the European Parliament) and co-wrote a research report on the right to government information (commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations). Simultaneously, she was carrying out research on the legal implications of algorithmic decision-making under the supervision of Professor Anne Meuwese.