Fiona is a Lecturer in Law (Teaching & Research) at the University of Manchester and incoming Deputy Director of Research (as of Sept. 2026). In March-June 2026 she was a George Flannery Visiting Fellow at the Law School, University of Sydney. Primarily an expert in tort and media law, her research focuses on personality rights in the internet age, including the ‘right to be forgotten’ in the GDPR, misuse of private information and defamation. Her work has been published in the UK, US, Canada, Australia and South America. She has recently published a monograph, Defamation in the Digital Age and the 'Right to be Forgotten' (BUP 2025). Fiona is Editor-in-Chief of Communications Law.

She holds a PhD in law from the University of Durham (2020, supervisor: G. Phillipson) as well as an LLM (distinction), and an LLB from the University of Newcastle (Hons, 2014). 

Research

Fiona advocates for the right to control one's information on the internet, although her academic interests now cut across media law, tort law and human rights more generally. She has published in specialist journals such as the Journal of Internet Law, Torts Law Journal and the Journal of Media Law as well as legal generalists the Law Quarterly Review and Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly. Her monograph for Bristol University Press 'Shorts' examined how defamation law is failing to protect reputation in the face of advanced technological threats, and considered whether data protection law provides more robust solutions. The book was awarded a 'Open UP ECR Monograph' prize across several publishers and subject areas and is open access to download, published in 2025. Fiona is currently editing a collection on digital media law alongside Prof H. Fenwick (Durham) to be published with Oxford University Press and is revising the defamation chapters of The Law of Tort for Butterworths Common Law Series alongisde Prof. P. O'Callaghan (UCC).

Stakeholder engagement

Fiona regularly engages with stakeholders in the industry. Most recently, she gave a paper at an anniversary event organised by the Information Commissioner's Office in Manchester, 2025 and a paper at Level 22 Chambers (Sydney, Australia) in 2026. In 2022 she co-authored a white paper commissioned by Synalogik with Professor Nic Ryder (Cardiff University) and Dr Sam Bourton (UWE) that concerned the exchange of information between third parties and law enforcement agencies. She also provided written evidence on this topic to the Bill Committee for the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill (now Act).

Other roles

As of 2026, Fiona is Editor-in-Chief of Communications Law Journal, a long-running, well-respected journal specialising in media law and communications published by Bloomsbury.

Elsewhere, she is an Associate Scholar of the Law and the Inner Self Project based out of University College Cork and funded by the Irish Research Council. In 2026, she is a George Flannery Visiting Fellow (Visiting Researcher) at the Law School, the University of Sydney (hosted by Professor David Rolph). She is also an Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Economic Criminology.

Fiona has held a number of administrative positions in Manchester, including Third Year Lead/Tutor, Chair of the Law Board, Internal Departmental Review member (L/SL rep) and Law Culture Group member. She is currently the (joint) Departmental Teaching Associate Co-Ordinator and from September 2026 will be Deputy Director of Research in Law. 

Projects and teaching/supervision

Fiona is interested in working on interdisciplinary research projects which relate to privacy, defamation and personal data, and has been involved in several such projects and many internal and external grant applications.

She teaches and has previously convened tort law at the University of Manchester as well as her own unit on online privacy, defamation and data protection law on the LLM.

She is a PhD supervisor and is open to applications in the areas of privacy, misuse of private information, defamation law, data protection (GDPR), freedom of expression online and vicarious liability in tort law.

privacy, misuse of private information, (UK) GDPR, 'right to be forgotten'/erasure, data protection, Articles 8 and 10 ECHR, freedom of expression, defamation, libel, slander, internet regulation, personal data on the web, vicarious liability.

email: [email protected]

LLB(Hons) Newcastle University, 2011-2014

LLM (distinction) Durham University, 2014-2015

PhD (law) Durham University, 2015-2020 (inc. full scholarship from Durham)

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, 2024