Dr Fran Humphries

Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Business and Law

Doctor of Philosophy (Griffith University), Master of Laws (Dalhousie University Canada)

Fran is a Research Fellow in the School of Law, working on a government/industry funded project about regulation and accreditation processes for autonomous unmanned maritime vessels. She is also leading a research consultancy for the United Nation’s (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization about biodiversity law and food production. Since 2018, Fran has been on the International Council of Environmental Law delegation at negotiations in New York for the proposed UN treaty on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. Fran was previously a Senior Research Fellow and Program Leader of the Law and Nature Research Program at Griffith University, where she also taught Equity and Trust law. Before entering academia, she spent 10 years as a government lawyer, policy advisor and mediator on marine and biosecurity issues. Fran’s overall research agenda is to investigate respectful interaction with marine environments in the digital age: bridging the gap between science, traditional knowledge and machine learning systems in decision-making. It has three interrelated research themes:

• Information/knowledge systems (science, traditional knowledge and machine learning) underpinning decision-making processes;
• conservation and sustainable use of marine/freshwater systems and biodiversity; and
• ecologically sustainable food production.

Research areas

• marine and maritime laws
• biodiversity, biosafety, biosecurity and biotechnology laws
• intellectual property laws
• automated decision making

Research funding

• Advance Queensland Initiative (2020-2022) Enabling Agile Assurance of Drones in Queensland (Co-chief investigator with Professor Dan Hunter and Professor Kieran Tranter)
• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome (2020-2021) Survey of Access and Benefit Sharing Country Measures Accommodating the Distinctive Features of Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and Associated Traditional Knowledge (Lead Consultant with contributions from Sarah Laird, Professor Rachel Wynberg, Professor Charles Lawson, Dr Clare Morrison and Anastasia Kolesnikova)
• International Fund for Agricultural Development for the WorldFish Centre, Malaysia (2018-2019) Aquaculture Genetic Resource Biodiversity, Biosafety and Intellectual Property Laws in 23 Countries (Lead Consultant with Professor Charles Lawson and Dr Clare Morrison)
• Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) for the ABS Initiative (2018) Biodiversity Contract Negotiation in Pacific Island Countries (consultant with Professor Daniel Robinson, Associate Professor Morten Tvedt, Dr Evana Wright and Solamalemalo Hai-Yuean Tualima)
• International Fund for Agricultural Development for the WorldFish Centre, Malaysia (2017) Improving the Technological Foundations for Sustainable Aquaculture (sole consultant)

Additional information