Federica Coppola

Federica Coppola is Assistant Professor of Law at IE University Law School. Prior to joining IE, she was Senior Researcher in the Dept. of Criminal Law at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security, and Law, where she currently is a Research Affiliate.

She holds a JD summa cum laude from University of Bologna, an LL.M in International, Comparative, and European Laws, and a PhD in Law from the European University Institute. Following her PhD, she was Robert A. Burt Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience at Columbia University in New York, a lecturer in law at Columbia Law School, and a postdoc scholar at Columbia University’s Social Relations Lab & the Center for Justice. Over the course of her career, she has held visiting positions at University of Pennsylvania Law School, the UPenn Center for Neuroscience and Society, the Institute of Criminology at University of Cambridge, and Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge. She has also taught lessons of justice and psychology in detention facilities in New York City and Freiburg.

Professor Coppola’s research and teaching interests include criminal law theory, sentencing and punishment, criminal constitutional law, criminal and social justice, and neurolaw. Her work has been featured in journals such as the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Criminal Law and Philosophy, the Journal of Law and the Biosciences, the UCL Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, and the International Journal of Constitutional Law. She is the author of “The Emotional Brain and the Guilty Mind: Novel Paradigms of Culpability and Punishment” (Hart Publishing, 2021) and the co-editor of “Social Rehabilitation and Criminal Justice” (Routledge, in press). Her second monograph, “The Real Pain of Punishment: Eradicating Social Exclusion from Criminal Justice”, is under contract with Cambridge University Press.

Academic Experience

• Assistant Professor of Law, IE University Law School, Spain, 2023 - Present

• Research Affiliate, Dept. of Criminal Law, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security, and Law, Germany, 2023 - Present

• Senior Researcher, Dept. of Criminal Law, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security, and Law, Germany, 2021 - 2023

• Lecturer in Comparative Criminal Law, University of Münster, Germany, 2022 - 2023

• Visiting Fellow, Center for Penal Theory, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, UK, 2022

• Visiting Fellow, Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge, UK, 2022

• Lecturer in Criminal Law and Neuroscience, Columbia Law School, USA, 2018 - 2019

• Robert A. Burt Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience, Center for Science and Society, Columbia University in New York, USA, 2017 - 2020

• Postdoc Scholar, Social Relations Lab & the Center for Justice, Dept. of Psychology, Columbia University in New York, USA, 2017 - 2020

• Lecturer in Criminology, University of Passau, Germany, 2016 - 2017

• Visiting Scholar, University of Pennsylvania Law School, USA, 2016

• Visiting Scholar, UPenn Center for Neuroscience and Society, USA, 2016

• Research Fellow, Center for Law, Science, and Technology, University of Pavia, Italy, 2012 - 2016

Academic Background

• Ph.D. in Law, European University Institute, 2017

• LL.M in Comparative, International, and European Laws, European University Institute, 2014

• J.D., University of Bologna Law School, Italy, 2010

Corporate Experience

• Italian Bar Exam, Licensed Attorney at Law, 2015

• Criminal Law Practice, Studio Legale Dambrosio, Italy, 2010 - 2012