Food Law and Policy Clinic Welcomes Visiting Scholar, Beatrice La Porta

In September 2023, the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic welcomed Beatrice La Porta as a visiting scholar from the University of Palermo in Italy, where she is a research fellow and also teaches agricultural law, agri-food chain law, and food trade and safety legislation in the departments of law and agriculture. Beatrice obtained her Ph.D. at the Agri-system Doctoral School of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, where she now also teaches food law.

Author of several articles and papers, in 2023, Beatrice published her monography titled “Contributo per una visione contemporanea dell’azienda agricola. Tra sostenibilità e sfide del mondo digitale,” contributing to create a contemporary legal view of the European Union digital and sustainable farms.

She developed research and working experiences as a lawyer in Italy, Bruxelles, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands, legal consulting at multiple public and private Italian and foreign centers. She has also supported the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) legal department and founded the JSLstudio food law consulting company.

In 2019, Beatrice won the EIT Food RIS Talent Fellowship, and in 2021, the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (Sylff) sponsored by the Tokyo Foundation. In 2023, she was awarded the Fulbright Schuman Research Fellowship from the U.S. State Department and the European Commission to work on the agriculture-climate relationship and food waste at the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic.

Beatrice is the Principal Investigator at the Italian PNRR granted project “Innovative solutions in the wine sector (IN-WINE)” for the biennium 2024-2026.

Beatrice’s legal research areas of interest include food law, agriculture law, agri-food sustainability, digitalization, agriculture and climate change, wine, labelling, novel food, agri-food companies, food waste and food loss.