Qin (Sky) Ma

Sky Ma’s research interests lie in comparative criminal law and procedure, evidence, legal ethics, and law & technology. Sky is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law (MPI-CSL), and an affiliated researcher at the Wisconsin Law School. Sky received her SJD from UCLA and a second PhD from Tsinghua University. She was a Hauser Global Fellow at NYU Law, a Max Weber Fellow at the EUI, and a CIVICA short-visiting fellow at the Sciences Po Law School.

At Oxford, Sky will complete her book manuscript on the criminal defense lawyers’ movement in China while deepening her expertise in oral history methods. At the same time, she will advance her research projects on the impact of AI on courts, judicial decision-making, and criminal law theory.

Sky integrates socio-legal theory with empirical and interdisciplinary methods in her scholarship. She is always curious about how law operates across different jurisdictions and cultures. Sky enjoys exchanging ideas with scholars from diverse backgrounds.