Ms Bhumika Billa

I have recently completed my PhD at the Faculty of Law as Cambridge Trust scholar and am currently a Research Associate at the Centre for Business Research and the ESRC Digital Futures at Work Research Centre. I read, write, teach, and perform on the broad themes of law, technology, and identity. My PhD explores the nature of the legal system as a communication system, towards a new Information Theory of Law. In modelling the coding processes by which law and society interact, I am investigating exclusivity, reflexivity, and adaptability of legal systems. Through this project, I hope to start bridging the agent-centric critiques with systemic critiques of law and further ask questions about the co-constitutive role of law, space, time, and bodies in reinforcing structural power. I am keen to explore and develop critical, creative, and collaborative methods that seek to challenge the hierarchies of knowledge production as I study them.

For more details, see my research profile as spotlighted by the University here: https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/the-language-of-justice.
For my latest invited Keynote address, see: https://www.festival.cam.ac.uk/events/legally-coding-humans-nature-and-t...

I am also moonlighting as a spoken word poet, Kathak dancer, filmmaker, and creative facilitator. My creative works on page, on stage, and on film center issues of social justice and have been commissioned/awarded by Amnesty International, Historic Royal Palaces, Harvard University, Button Poetry, BBC Words First, and Out-Spoken Press among others. For creative commissions/projects, please write to bhumika.billa@gmail.com. 

Education:

• PhD in Law, Peterhouse, University of Cambridge (2021-present)
• LLM, St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge (2019-20)
• BA LLB, Vivekananda School of Law and Legal Studies, GGSIP University (2013-18)

Prizes & Awards:

• Gavin C. Reid Prize for the Best Paper by an Early Career Researcher for 'Law as Code: Exploring Information, Communication and Power in Legal Systems' (2024)
• Kenneth Law Essay Prize, for first-year paper titled ‘Towards an Information Theory of Law’, Peterhouse, University of Cambridge (2022)
• Cambridge University Law Society Gold award for legal pro bono work over an academic year (2022)
• St Edmund’s College Prize, for achieving first class in LL.M. examinations, St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge (2020)
• University Gold Medal, GGSIP University for overall first rank in B.A. LL.B. across 8 colleges (2018)

Scholarships & Grants:

• British Academy Seed Funding (2025-26)
• SLSA Research Grant (2025-26)
• Cambridge Creative Encounters, Partnership with Cambridge School of Visual and Performing Arts, University of Cambridge (2023)
• Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Trust Cambridge International Scholarship, full-scholarship towards PhD, University of Cambridge (2021-present)
• Cambridge Trust Scholarship, partial scholarship towards LL.M., University of Cambridge (2019)
• Cornelia Sorabji Law Scholarship, partial scholarship towards BCL, University of Oxford (offered) (2019)

Experience:

• Associate Fellow, ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work, Universities of Sussex and Leeds, (2021-present)
• Research Associate, Centre for Business Research, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge (2020-present)
• Researcher, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University (Fall 2022)
• Project Manager, Cambridge Law Faculty Pro Bono Project, University of Cambridge (2021-22)
• General Editor, Cambridge International Law Journal (2019-20)
• Legal Research Fellow, Centre for WTO Studies, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi (2018-2019)

Teaching:

• Lecturer, Criminology and Criminal Justice in Context (Law, Sociology, Criminology Tripos), Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge (2026-27)
• Course Convenor, Law and Economy (LLM), Kent Law School, University of Kent (2025-26)
• Supervisor, 'Legal Evolution and Game Theory', Law and Economics (BA Land Economy), Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge (2024-present)
• Guest Lecturer, 'Feminist Legal Methodologies', Race, Gender and the Law (LLM), Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge (2023-present)
• Workshop Leader, ‘Law, Technology, Society', Economics of Law and Regulation (LLM), Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge (2020-23)
• Workshop Leader, ‘Inequality and Law’, Economics of Law and Regulation (LLM), Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge (2020-22)
• Principal Associate and Teaching Assistant, Negotiation Theory (Executive Education), The Negotiation Academy (2017-19)