Prof. Visa Kurki is the principal investigator of the LEGACY project, and Associate Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Helsinki. He has in his earlier work focused on the philosophical analysis of topics of such as legal personhood, rights and the legal status of animals. As part of the LEGACY project, his focus will be on synthesizing the various topics into a unifying account of legal agency.
Visa's personal website: www.visakurki.net
Dr. Diana Mocanu is in charge of the in-depth analysis subproject concerning artificial and group agency. She is a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Law of the University of Helsinki. She has a background in philosophy of law and holds a doctoral degree in law from the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, for which she defended a thesis titled “Beyond persons and things: the legal status of artificial intelligence systems in the European Union”. Her research focuses on the intersections between law, philosophy and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence.
Diana will gladly comment on topics related to their area of expertise for all forms of media in English.
Dr. Daniel Dodds Berger is in charge of the subproject concerning historical background of Liberal Agency and its challengers. He is a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki. He earned a law degree from the Universidad de Chile and then continued his studies at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, where he completed a master’s degree in philosophy and a Ph.D. in 2024. His research focuses on the development of legal agency in 18th and 19th century German philosophy and legal science. He also engages with contemporary theories of rights, seeking to bridge historical perspectives with modern legal challenges.
Daniel will gladly comment on topics related to their area of expertise for all forms of media in English.
Marcia is a Peruvian lawyer, currently a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki on the topic "Animal Legal Agency" as part of the "Agency in the Law". Her research explains that many animals are, or have the ability to be, legal agents who can act within the framework of the legal system by being endowed with legal powers. Previously, Marcia obtained a master's degree in Animal Law from Lewis & Clark Law School (graduated with Honors). Also, Marcia is the Director and Founder of Derecho Animal en Perú, an organization for the development of Animal Law as a legal area in Peruvian academia and legal practice.