Rosemary J. Coombe is a Tier One Canada Research Chair in Law, Communication and Cultural Studies at York University in Toronto, where she teaches in the Communications and Culture Joint PhD/MA Programme, and is cross-appointed to the Osgoode Hall Faculty of Law Graduate Programme, and the Graduate Programme in Social and Political Thought. Prior to being awarded one of the country’s first Canada Research Chairs she was Full Professor of Law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. She holds a J.S.D. from Stanford University with a Minor in Anthropology and publishes widely in anthropology and political and legal theory.

Rosemary J. Coombe is a principal investigator in the CFI-funded research project “New Media Collaboration Centre: Canadian Arts Content Management System and Centre for Digital Policy and Cultural Rights Initiatives”. This unique, multi-sectoral project is developing an open source content management system that incorporates the principles of fair dealing in its user interfaces. This software is designed to help alleviate the intellectual property obstacles encountered by cultural organizations in their initiatives to make their collections and archives available online for research and non-commercial purposes.

Professor Carys Craig’s award-winning work, which has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada, draws on legal, cultural, and feminist theory to boldly challenge traditional conceptions of intellectual property and their relevance in the digital era. Her ambitious research pursuits encompass domestic, comparative and international intellectual property law and policy, and emphasize public interest and the public domain. A recipient of the Osgoode Excellence in Teaching Award, Professor Craig’s wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm, combined with her engaging teaching style, have helped to define the IP Osgoode program, and have made her courses favourites with Osgoode students. 

Professor Giuseppina D’Agostino brings creativity and passion to her role as Founder and Director of IP Osgoode. Educated at Osgoode and Oxford where she studied under Professor David Vaver and was a Lecturer in Jurisprudence at Oxford, her research interests in the intellectual property law field are wide-ranging and she is highly sought after as a public speaker and consultant. Author of the forthcoming book, Copyright, Contract, Creators (Edward Elgar 2009), she is also the founder of IPilogue.ca, the first student-populated blog of its kind on IP, faculty advisor for the Osgoode Hall Review of Law and Policy and a Research Associate at the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre.

Simon Fodden taught law at Osgoode Hall Law School for 30 years. He took early retirement in order to devote more time to his interest in information technology, particularly as it affects law and law teaching. He founded the Canadian cooperative law blog Slaw (http://www.slaw.ca) and created The Court blog (http://www.thecourt.ca) for Osgoode.

Joan M. Gilmour joined Osgoode Hall Law School’s faculty in 1990, after practising civil litigation and administrative law.  She teaches Health Law, Legal Governance of Health Care, Torts and Disability and the Law in the LLB program.  She developed and is Director of Osgoode’s part-time LLM program specializing in Health Law, and teaches graduate courses on Professional Governance, and Legal Frameworks of the Healthcare System.  She is past Director of Osgoode’s Institute for Feminist Legal Studies, and past Associate and Acting Director of York University’s Centre for Health Studies. 

Professor Gilmour’s research and publications in health law span some of the most debated issues in contemporary society.  She recently completed a major study on the effects of tort law (negligence) on efforts to improve patient safety and reduce medical error.  Current research projects include an examination of legal and ethical issues in decision-making about health care for children, and a study of the interrelationship of disability, gender, law and inequality.  She has acted as a consultant to Health Canada, and completed a study for the Ontario Law Reform Commission on assisted suicide, euthanasia, and foregoing life-sustaining treatment.  She has also completed studies on health care restructuring and privatization, professional regulation of complementary and alternative medicine, and the interrelation of poverty, health and access to justice. 

Winner of numerous academic awards, scholarships and fellowships including the prestigious Killam Scholarship and the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft Award, Professor Ikechi Mgbeoji is the author of two books, Collective Insecurity: The Liberian Crisis, Unilateralism& Global Order (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003) and Patents and Indigenous Peoples (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005), as well as co-author of Environmental Law in Developing Countries: Selected Issues (Cambridge: IUCN, 2001).  Perpetually evolving as a scholar, his research interests are diverse and reflect the many possibilities of the IP Osgoode program.

Roxanne Mykitiuk is an Associate Professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, where she teaches in the areas of Health Law and Bioethics, Children and the Law, Law and Disability and Family Law.  She is the author or co-author of a number of articles and book chapters investigating legal, ethical and social implications of new reproductive technologies and the new genetics and the legal construction and regulation of embodiment and disability. She is also the co-editor with Martha Fineman of The Public Nature of Private Violence (Routledge, 1994), the co-editor with Margrit Shildrick of Ethics of the Body: Rethinking the Conventions (MIT Press, 2005) and the co-author with Trudo Lemmens and Mireille Lacroix of Reading the Future: Legal and Ethical Challenges of New Predictive Genetic Testing (Les Editions Themis, 2007).  From 1990-92 she was Senior Legal Researcher for the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. In 2002 she was appointed to the Ontario Advisory Committee on Genetics. 

Craig M. Scott joined Osgoode Hall Law School in 2000 following a term as a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. Prior to joining Osgoode, he was a member of the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, from 1989 to 2001. From 2001 to 2004, Professor Scott was Associate Dean (Research and Graduate Studies). He is currently Director of the Jack and Mae Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security.Professor Scott was a founding Board member of the International Association of Law Schools (IALS), 2006-2008.  He spearheaded the creation in 2006 of the Association of Transnational Law Schools (ATLAS), consisting of Osgoode/York, New York University, London School of Economics, University of Cape Town, University of Melbourne, Universidad de Deusto (Bilbao), and the Université de Montréal.  He was the Academic Director of the ATLAS inaugural doctoral-student academy, or Agora (July 7-25, 2008): www.ATLASdoctorate.com.

He received the 2008 York University International Award for Outstanding Contribution to Internationalization.  Throughout 2008-09, he will make a series of short-term visits to the Universidad de Deusto in Bilbao, Spain, as a European Union Erasmus Mundus Scholar.  He is series editor of Hart Monographs on Transnational and International Law (4MB pdf).  With Osgoode colleagues, he is an editor of the forthcoming Journal of Transnational Legal Theory. 

Rex Shoyama is a Visiting Professor and the Assistant Director of Osgoode’s Intellectual Property Law & Technology program.  Prior to joining Osgoode, he was in-house legal counsel for Yahoo! Canada.  He has also practised IP law at the law firm of Smart & Biggar/Fetherstonhaugh.  Rex received his BASc in Systems Design Engineering (with a minor in Cognitive Science) from the University of Waterloo and received his JD from the University of Toronto.  His interests include legal issues relating to the Internet, information technologies, and the intersection of law and technology.

Professor David Vaver is returning to Osgoode from Oxford in 2009 to inspire a new generation of students in the IP Osgoode program.  An Emeritus Fellow of St. Peter’s College at Oxford and former Director of the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre, Professor Vaver has written extensively in intellectual property law including two texts – Intellectual Property Law: Copyright, Patents, Trademarks (Toronto: Irwin Law 1997) and Copyright Law (Toronto: Irwin Law 2000).  His most recent work, a five-volume compilation of leading IP articles, Intellectual Property Rights: Critical Concepts in Law (Routledge, 2006), demonstrates his endless fascination with IP.  For a more detailed list of publications, please click here.