Visiting Scholars & Researchers: Current Scholars

Giulio Angeloni (Rome, Italy)
Giulio Angeloni is currently finishing his doctorate in Private Comparative Law at the University of Macerata, while serving as a trainee lawyer with Studio Legale Piga in Rome. Following his graduation from Roma Tre University’s law program in 2006, Giulio began working as a trainee lawyer with the firm Simmons & Simmons. Throughout this period, he continued his affiliation with Roma Tre; first as a research assistant and later as a teaching assistant. In March 2007, he left Simmons & Simmons in order to pursue a six-month term at the Italian Competition Authority as an intern with the Research and International Relations Directorate. In 2008, Giulio Angeloni was granted a place in his current doctoral program at the University of Macerata, and is undertaking a dissertation on the topic of “Human Capital Regulation: A Comparative Analysis between Civil Law and Common Law Legal Systems.” He was awarded a prestigious three-year scholarship to complete the program.

Noriyuki Aoki (Tokyo, Japan)
Noriyuki Aoki is an Associate Professor of Law at Waseda University. After graduating from Waseda University in 1997 and finishing Law School, he became a faculty member in 2005. Professor Aoki teaches Japanese civil law including property, contract, and secured transactions to undergraduate and graduate students. He is strongly interested in ‘the policies and rules concerning transactions with collateralized or securitized cash flows for income producing properties’ (such as cash flow from the mortgaged commercial real estate, proceeds of inventory or account receivables). As part of his research project, Aoki will investigate the role of covenants in asset-based lending transactions.

Carlos Gomez Liguerre (Barcelona, Spain)
Carlos Gómez Ligüerre, Ph.D., is a tenured professor of private law at Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona, Spain) where he teaches tort law, contract law and economic analysis of law. He holds both law and economics degrees. His Ph.D. thesis, on ‘Joint and Several Liability Among Tortfeasors,’ was awarded a prize as the best Spanish dissertation in private law in 2005. Professor Gómez Ligüerre passed the Spanish professorial exam (habilitation) in 2007. He is currently spending a year in the United States conducting research on environmental liability. He is interested in the liability system founded by CERCLA and its effects on tort and property law. His research at Penn Law focuses on the rules governing relations among potential responsible parties and the effects of clean-up costs in real estate transactions.

John Howe (Melbourne, Australia)
Associate Professor John Howe is Director of the Centre for Employment and Labor Relations Law at the Melbourne Law School in Australia, where he teaches in the areas of labor law, corporation law and corporate social responsibility. Professor Howe has written extensively about labor law as a form of labor market regulation, and the application of regulatory theory to labor law as well as corporate self-governance of employment practices and labor management. He is co-editor of the book Labor Law and Labor Market Regulation published in 2006, and his book Regulating for Job Creation was published by Federation Press in late 2008. He is Secretary of the Australian Labor Law Association, and is editor of the Reports section of the Australian Journal of Labor Law. While visiting the Penn Law School, Professor Howe will commence a research project investigating whether financial incentives and subsidies can operate in the nature of 'meta regulation,' which causes businesses to take corporate social responsibility (with respect to labor standards) more seriously.

Umberto Izzo (Trento, Italy)
Umberto Izzo is a tenured Assistant Professor of Private Comparative Law at Trento University in Italy. In addition to holding a Ph.D. in Comparative Law from the same institution, Izzo received his J.D in Law from the University of Bari. His research interests focus primarily on the fields of law & technology, medical law & ethics and tort law and he has been invited to speak at many international seminars and conferences on these topics. Izzo is currently engaged in a comparative study on the legal issues raised by “biobanks” that have been established for research purposes. He is specifically interested in the regulation of property and privacy in the governance of biobanking activity.

Atsushi Koide (Tokyo, Japan)
Atsushi Koide is an associate professor with the Faculty of Law at Gakushuin University and a specialist in corporate and commercial law. He is returning to spend the 2009-2010 academic year at Penn Law. Professor Koide earned his LLB from the University of Tokyo where he worked as a research associate in the Graduate School of Law and Politics. Prior to his work at University of Tokyo, Mr. Koide practiced with the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. In Japan, he has served as a member of the study groups at many institutions such as Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), Capital Markets Research Institute (CAMRI), Trust Companies Association of Japan and others. He recently participated in UNIDROIT Committees of governmental experts for Model Law on Leasing as the representative of the Government of Japan. While at Penn, Professor Koide will study the relationship between corporate governance and corporate finance, especially focused on the role of creditors.

Hyun-suk Lim (Daejeon, Republic of Korea)
Hyun-suk Lim holds a patent lawyer's license and has worked for the South Korean government’s Intellectual Property Office since 1998. In this capacity, he has served as an intellectual property policy maker, a patent examiner and a solicitor for patent litigations. Lim received his bachelor's degree in Law from Seoul National University (SNU), and a second bachelor's degree in Engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). He has lectured on intellectual property law courses at the graduate programs of both Seoul National University and Korea University. He additionally collaborated on the publication of a graduate textbook addressing the subject of intellectual property law. Hyun-suk Lim has been recognized with several major awards including the Presidential Award (1st prize) in the 2008 “Government Officials Information Ability” Competition. At Penn Law, Lim will be working on a comparative study of the U.S. intellectual property law system.

Richard Lu Jun (Beijing, China)
Richard Lujun is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics (IQTE) within the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). He holds a Ph.D. in accounting from the same institution. Professor Lujun has received special funding from the Ford Foundation to support his research on corporate environmental disclosure, environmental performance, and financial performance. His ultimate research goal is to analyze the experience of developed countries, in order to help China improve environmental regulation systems and enhance awareness on environmental responsibility for multinational firms.

Federico Picinali (Trento, Italy)
Federico Picinali is a Ph.D. student in Criminal Law at the University of Trento, Italy. Prior to his tenure at Penn, Picinali has been a guest at three U.S. institutions: as an exchange student at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, as a research scholar at UC Hastings’s School of Law, and as a research scholar at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law. Picinali’s current research goal is to offer a critique on the concept of ‘material elements of the offense’ from the perspective of their feasible proofs. By using interdisciplinary methodology, Picinali is seeking to overcome the longstanding dichotomy between Criminal Law and Evidence Law.

Xinjun Zhang (Beijing, China)
Dr. Xinjun Zhang is an Associate Professor of Public International Law at Tsinghua University, Beijing. He received his doctorial degree from Kyoto University in 2004, and joined the Tsinghua Law faculty shortly thereafter. His research interests include International Environmental Law, Maritime Law, Non-proliferation Law and the Law of Treaties. He is a member of International Law Association (ILA), and active participant in the ‘Committee on The Legal Principles relating to Climate Change’. He will be spending this year as a Fulbright Research Scholar at Penn Law, conducting research on the “Precautionary Principle in Contemporary International Environmental Law”.