Barbara van Schewick is an associate professor of law at Stanford Law School, an associate professor (by courtesy) of electrical engineering at Stanford’s Department of Electrical Engineering, and the faculty director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society and an affiliated faculty member at CISAC.

Her research focuses on the economic, regulatory, and strategic implications of communication networks. In particular, she explores how changes in the architecture of computer networks affect the economic environment for innovation and competition on the Internet, and how the law should react to these changes. This work has made her a leading expert on the issue of network neutrality. In 2007, van Schewick was one of three academics who, together with public interest groups, filed the petition that started the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality inquiry into Comcast’s blocking of BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer protocols. She has testified on issues of Internet architecture and network neutrality before the FCC in en banc hearings and official workshops. Her book Internet Architecture and Innovation was published by MIT Press in summer 2010.

Prior to joining the Stanford Law faculty, van Schewick was a senior researcher at the Technical University Berlin, Germany, and a nonresidential fellow of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. From August 2000 to November 2001, she was the first residential fellow at that center.

Van Schewick holds a PhD in Computer Science, an MSc in Computer Science, and a BSc in Computer Science, all summa cum laude from Technical University Berlin, the Second State Exam in Law (equivalent of Bar Exam), summa cum laude, from the Higher Regional Court Berlin and the First State Exam in Law (equivalent of JD), summa cum laude, from Free University Berlin.

She received the Scientific Award 2005 from the German Foundation for Law and Computer Science and the Award in Memory of Dieter Meurer 2006 from the German Association for the Use of Information Technology in Law (“EDV-Gerichtstag”) for her doctoral work. In October 2010, she received the Research Prize Technical Communication 2010 from the Alcatel-Lucent Stiftung for Communications Research for her pioneering work in the area of Internet architecture, innovation and regulation.