Dr May Hen-Smith

Research Interests

I am a fiscal sociologist and socio-legal researcher interested in decentralized finance (DeFi), digital assets, tax and the digital economy. My current project is called "Taxing Ghosts: Transnational Residency Issues in the Digital Economy" (2023-2026), a Leverhulme Trust funded study following the experiences of start-ups and established tech companies as they navigate through the economic systems which generate their value and the regulatory systems which constrain their growth. My other ongoing project is a 10-year longitudinal study of women in offshore finance. It chronicles the experiences and career trajectories of women in offshore financial centres and compares those experiences to women in metropolitan financial centres. 

Other Projects:

"Fiscal Literacy NOW: Creating Accessible and Interactive 30-second finance lessons for young people through TikTok and social media" (2023-2024) is funded by Fonds de recherche du Québec, and is part of an experimental science communication and outreach project devised by myself and my co-investigator, Professor Allison Christians, at McGill University. The intent of Fiscal literacy NOW is to democratize financial literacy through the dissemination of the types of basic finance lessons typically found through higher education. In using a variety of accessible and interactive social media platforms, such as TikTok and Instagram, we aim to connect directly with young people to help them learn about the basics of money and finances as well as to dispel common misinformation on financial literacy. The traditional model of marketing and information sharing has been uprooted with the rise of platforms like TikTok and created a void in educational outreach as well as precarious conditions in which misinformation can spread. Additionally, our intent is to address a gap in educational training and outreach from universities by developing a template for university teaching and learning centers to share with their post-graduate students, professors, and other teaching staff. 

"The Politics of Money and 'Money-like Things': Cryptocurrency, Fintech and Disruptive Payment Systems" (2024-2026) is currently in-progress with my co-investigator, Professor Peter Chow-White, at Simon Fraser University and supported by the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. The project will form the basis of the first 'University of Cambridge Professors in Residence Series: Decentralized Finance' for 2024-2026. The project provides the necessary and defined space at the University of Cambridge for empirically based, accurate, and productive information that can contribute to global conversations by establishing a year-long, flexible residency for leaders in the above themed research fields. This idea is a spin-off of my "Taxing Ghosts" project as it studies the rising decentralized finance community and develops research to address a gap in knowledge in this area. It would initiate a new piece of research on decentralized finance (DeFi) led by myself and a cohort of world-class professors leading the field and who are also directors of major research centres on money, AI, blockchain and cryptocurrencies.