Research Fellow
About
I am a fiscal anthropologist/sociologist and socio-legal researcher interested in global tax issues and the digital economy. I am employed by the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Law and a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Jesus College. I am also a Visiting Research Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science (Sociology). Prior to that I was at McGill University (Law) from 2021-2023.
I currently hold a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellowship and Isaac Newton Trust Research Fellowship to study the impact of global tax policies on the digital economy. My work at McGill University was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and Trans-Atlantic Platform for Social Sciences and Humanities. I obtained my PhD in Sociology at the University of Cambridge (Jesus College), Master's and Bachelor's degree in Communication at Simon Fraser University (Canada).
I have worked as a researcher for many academic institutions including McGill University (Law), the London School of Economics and Political Science (Sociology), University of Cambridge (Sociology), Simon Fraser University (Sociology and Anthropology) and the University of California, Irvine (Anthropology). I have also conducted research as an intern at Microsoft Research, Cambridge (UK) where I studied the economic decision-making behaviours of cloud users. Prior to research, I worked for Canada Revenue Agency.
I specialize in the study of a wide range of economic phenomena using ethnographic inquiry and qualitative research methods. Since 2008, I have been working in tax and researching tax at the international level. My current project, is a 3-year study which follows 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 second 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.
My previous research (2011-2021) looked at the technical role of offshore financial centres in the global financial system. I spent several years conducting fieldwork in the Cayman Islands and have, for over ten years, conducted extensive ethnographic research and interviews amongst the finance and legal professionals who live and work there. I have published a book chapter on some of my findings here and have presented my findings in speaking engagements such as here. I am currently working on publishing my PhD work in academic journals with a focus on the sociology of offshore laws.
More information can be found about me below:
University of Cambridge https://www.law.cam.ac.uk/people/m-hen/77637
