Luana Mathias Souto is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Gender and ICT Research Group at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. She is the Principal Investigator of the project “Reproductive Health under Algorithm Surveillance” (THELMA), for which Horizon Europe awarded her a Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship in the 2023 call.
She holds doctoral and master’s degrees in Law from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais – PUC Minas (Brazil). Her doctoral dissertation about the effectiveness of women’s political rights received a Magna cum Laude distinction. It was granted a CAPES scholarship and a CAPES/PDSE scholarship for a short research stay at the University of Vechta (Germany) – Department of Philosophy.
She is a theoretical and interdisciplinary legal researcher focused on Legal Theory, Law and Literature, Human Rights, Democracy, and Gender Studies. Her work is based on a feminist legal theory with biopolitical analyses of gender issues. Her last published book chapter is about the biopolitical perspective in women’s legal education as part of the Routledge-edited book Biopolitics and Structure in Legal Education.
She also worked as a visiting Postdoctoral Researcher at the Max Planck Institute in Frankfurt (MPILHLT/2023) and Hamburg (MPIPriv/2024) and as a Research Fellow at the Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin (2024). In Brazil, she was dedicated to public advocacy as a lawyer and taught legal methodology to undergraduate students at CEDIN Law School.
Contact
E-mail: lmathiass@uoc.edu
ORCID: 0000-0002-6961-0187
Social
Academia.edu, ResearchGate, LinkedIn, Bluesky
Selected publications
Souto, L. M. [Luana Mathias], Holl, J. [In press]. Gender Representation in the Brazilian Judiciary: Reflections upon a case study of the right to abortion. In I. Krstic, S. Baer, & I. Jelić (Eds.), Gender and the Judiciary. Gender Perspectives in Law Series, Springer.
Mathias Souto, L. [Luana], & Müller, J. [Jörg]. (2025). Legal and Ethical Challenges of Femtech: Protecting Women’s Data & Rights in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism. In Companion Proceedings of the ACM on Web Conference 2025 (pp. 2796–98). WWW ’25. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3701716.3716881
Souto, L. M. [Luana Mathias]. (2025). Structural. Gender-based violence on women’s bodies: Reproductive rights and technologies. In Actes del I Congrés Internacional ‘Vulnerabilitat Social i Violències Masclistes’ (128-133). Revista alimara. IMAS Departament de Benestar Social del Consell de Mallorca. https://www.revistaalimara.net/revista/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Llibre-actes_I_congresoviolenciamachista.pdf
Souto, L. M. [Luana Mathias]. (2023). The Biopolitical Perspective in Women’s Legal Education. In Thomas Giddens and Luca Siliquini-Cinelli (Eds.), Biopolitics and Structure in Legal Education. Routledge.
Souto, L. M. [Luana Mathias]. (2023). Lógica algorítmica e representação feminina na política: novos (velhos) desafios. In J. A.L Sampaio et al. (Org.). A inteligência artificial: a (de)serviço do Estado de Direito. 1ed.Belo Horizonte: RTM (p. 329-348). OPEN ACCESS – Link to full text
Souto, L. M. [Luana Mathias], & Almeida, L. M. G. (2023). Questões de gênero e a (in)eficácia da prestação jurisdicional eleitoral: retrocesso na efetivação das ações afirmativas de ampliação da representatividade de gênero na política. In A. R. S. Cruz et.al. (Org.). Minorias Visíveis. 1ed. São Paulo: Dialética, v. 1 (p. 353-384).
Souto, L. M. [Luana Mathias]. (2022). Do tiranicídio ao impeachment: as formas de destituição do poder. 1. ed. São Paulo: Dialética.
Souto, G. M. M. [Gisleule Maria Menezes], & Souto, L. M. [Luana Mathias]. (2022). A Hora da Estrela, de Clarice Lispector: Reflexões sobre violência de gênero no Brasil. Language and Law/Linguagem e Direito, 8(2), 2022. OPEN ACCESS – Link to full text
Souto, L. M. [Luana Mathias], & Souto, G. M. M. [Gisleule Maria Menezes]. (2022). (Des)velando o Feminismo Decolonial. reflexões sobre a violência política de gênero na américa latina. Revista da Faculdade de Direito (UFU), 49: 218-237. https://doi.org/10.14393/RFADIR-v49n2a2021-65173. OPEN ACCESS – Link to full text
Sampaio, J. A. L. [José Adércio Leite], & Souto, L. M. [Luana Mathias]. (2021). Ausência de interseccionalidade nas políticas públicas de promoção da igualdade de gênero na política brasileira. Revista Do Direito, 64. https://doi.org/10.17058/rdunisc.vi64.15671 OPEN ACCESS – Link to full text
Sampaio, J. A. L. [José Adércio Leite], Almeida, L. M. G. [Larissa de Moura Guerra], & Souto, L. M. [Luana Mathias]. Crise Sanitária e Estado de Exceção: uma Reflexão Quanto aos Subprodutos Insurgentes da Pandemia do Novo Coronavírus. Revista Direito Público, 17(96): 171-197. https://doi.org/10.11117/rdp.v17i96.4397. OPEN ACCESS – Link to full text.
Souto, L. M. [Luana Mathias], Sampaio, J. A. L. [José Adércio Leite]. (2021). Mulher e voz: os desafios à efetividade dos direitos políticos femininos. Sequência, 42(88). https://doi.org/10.5007/2177-7055.2021.e78052. OPEN ACCESS – Link to full text.
Souto, L. M. [Luana Mathias]. (2020). Life-narratives and human rights: reflection about women’s rights and state of exception. Anamorphosis – Revista Internacional de Direito e Literatura, 6(1): 151-175. OPEN ACCESS – Link to full text
Interviews
2024, May. Weizenbaum Institute. Disinformation with a Gender.
2024, October 22. UOC News. How to protect women’s rights from the surveillance risks of fertility apps.