Our experts

Cosimo Monda

Cosimo Monda is the Director of the Maastricht European Centre on Privacy and Cybersecurity (ECPC), which has been established in 2016 at the Law Faculty, Maastricht University.

At ECPC his work has a strong European and international outlook in the field of privacy and cybersecurity, steering an interdisciplinary group of researchers, academics and professionals active in areas of fundamental rights, data privacy, transparency and confidentiality, IT, data security, and more. Cosimo Monda has a longstanding experience in designing executive education, certification courses and online learning modules for professionals who are required to deal with new regulations and on-going developments in the privacy and cybersecurity market. Before joining Maastricht University, he was working at the European Institute of Public Administration, as Senior Lecturer and Head of Information, Publications, and Marketing services. He holds a Law Degree obtained at the University of Bologna.

His fields of expertise include Data Protection and Cyber security, EU Information Management; Transparency and access to documents; EU Agencies; EU decision-making procedures and Institutions and EU law. 

Maja Brkan

As per 1 November 2023, UM’s Executive Board has appointed Dr Maja Brkan as endowed professor of Digitalisation and EU Law.

Maja Brkan is currently a Judge at the General Court of the European Union. She was previously Assistant and Associate Professor of European Union Law at our Faculty (2013-2021) and Associate Director of the Maastricht Centre for European Law (2017-2020). She was a référéndaire at the Court of Justice of the EU (2007-2013) before her academic appointment.

Maja has extensive expertise and experience in research and teaching in the field of digitalisation and EU law. As Professor of Digitalisation and EU Law, Maja contributes to the further development and teaching of courses in the field of digitalisation and EU law, gives guest lectures and supervises Master theses, embedding her practical experiences into teaching and research. She is a member of the European Centre on Privacy and Cybersecurity and the Maastricht Centre for European Law.

Cristina Teleki

Dr. Cristina Teleki is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the European Centre on Privacy and Cybersecurity working on the regulation of Big Tech. She has earned her doctoral degree at Bern University (Switzerland) focusing on the right to a fair trial in EU competition law. She has previously worked at the International Committee of the Red Cross and the European Court of Human Rights.

Davide Baldini

Davide Baldini is a data protection and IT lawyer. He is a Partner at the leading international law firm ICT Legal Consulting, where he provides consultancy on personal data protection, TMT and IT contracts to multinational companies and innovative start-ups. He obtained the DPO certification (ECPC-B) issued by Maastricht University and is a certified auditor for the Cloud Security Alliance Code of Conduct and for the Europrivacy certification scheme. He held the position of research fellow at the University of Florence from May 2021 to October 2022, conducting research on profiling and automated decision-making. He is currently a PhD Candidate in European and Transnational Legal Studies at the same University, where he conducts research in the field of artificial intelligence, with a focus on algorithmic discrimination. He is the author of several essays and papers for legal blogs and law journals.

Laura Brodahl 

Laura Brodahl is a senior associate in the EU data regulatory practice of Wilson Sonsini, based in Brussels. Her practice focuses on digital regulatory issues under the GDPR, AI Act and EU Cybersecurity regulations such as the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and NIS2 Directive. Laura regularly offers strategic and practical guidance to organizations of all sizes, including in their interactions with regulatory authorities. Her all-round experience allows her to easily navigate the complexities of the EU's data regulatory landscape. She has considerable experience in advising on cutting-edge technologies in FinTech, social media, autonomous vehicles, and biometrics. The Legal 500 calls her out for “ her advice on matters relating to innovation technology”.

Thomas Fabry 

Thomas Fabry is assistant professor of privacy and cybersecurity at Maastricht University's European Centre on Privacy and Cybersecurity (ECPC). As a multidisciplinary scientist, he holds a master degree in Computing Science from KU Leuven (Belgium), a PhD in Engineering Sciences from Université Grenoble Alpes (France), a bachelor degree in Medicine, and a teaching degree in Mathematics also from KU Leuven. His current research interests are mainly situated in the field of (healthcare) security, privacy and data ethics. Previous research has included fields such as medical imaging and computer vision, biometrics for security and privacy and (computational) health physics.

Prior to joining Maastricht University, Thomas Fabry held research positions in Belgium and at CERN in Switzerland, as well as industry roles in the Netherlands and Switzerland that featured quality/regulatory management and cybersecurity governance.

As part of his professional activities outside academia, Thomas Fabry holds the role of Senior Privacy Officer/Senior Scientist at Philips.

Beyond his academic pursuits, Thomas Fabry is an accomplished musician.

Paolo Balboni

Paolo Balboni (PhD) is a Professor of Privacy, Cybersecurity, and IT Contract Law at the European Centre on Privacy and Cybersecurity (ECPC) within the Maastricht University Faculty of Law. His main research focuses are cybersecurity, data management/sharing and data protection as a corporate social responsibility, which together can be used to help organisations responsibly further their economic targets and at the same time positively contribute to the development of a fair data-centric society.

Qualified lawyer specialized in ICT, Privacy & Cybersecurity admitted to the Milan Bar and registered to the Amsterdam Bar. He is a Founding Partner of ICT Legal Consulting (ICTLC), an international law firm, and ICT Cyber Consulting, a company specialized in information/data security. Prof. Dr. Balboni is a Recommended Lawyer ranked by The Legal 500 EMEA 2023 in the areas of Data Privacy and Data Protection and Industry Focus: TMT. He is the Chairman of the European Patent Office (EPO) Data Protection Board, Member of the EUMETSAT Data Protection Supervisory Authority, Member of the Europrivacy Board of Experts, Member of the European Commission’s Expert Group on B2B data sharing and cloud computing contracts, and of the Cloud Security Alliance’s AI Safety Expert Group. Prof. Dr. Balboni furthermore advises governments on national matters concerning cybersecurity and privacy and in 2018, he drafted the national Surinamese Privacy and Data Protection Law.

Joyce Groneschild

Joyce Groneschild is the Deputy-Director of the European Centre on Privacy and Cybersecurity (ECPC) at the Faculty of Law. Joyce is a strategic marketing specialist with a strong focus on value co-creation. She has a longstanding experience in running executive education programmes for professionals, managing large projects and developing executive programmes to fit organisations’ needs globally.