Dr María Rún Bjarnadóttir has joined the Department of Law at Reykjavík University. Her doctoral thesis is titled Does the Internet Limit Human Rights Protection? Sexual Privacy and the Limits of the Law. María Rún specialises in the intersection of human rights and technology law and has been an active advocate against digital violence, particularly towards girls and women. María Rún will help lead the department’s increased focus on research and teaching in technology law and digital legal issues.

María Rún worked at the Office of the National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police from 2021, initially as Project Manager for Digital Violence. She later became Director of the Police Education and Professional Development Centre, then Chief Innovation and Policy Officer, before assuming the roles of Chief Legal Officer and Deputy National Commissioner of Police. In this position, she led the development of a new online cybercrime reporting portal for the police and worked on the implementation of artificial intelligence within the institution.

María Rún earned her PhD from the University of Sussex School of Law in 2021, her Master’s degree from the Faculty of Law at the University of Iceland in 2008, and a BA in Law from the University of Iceland in 2006. She has participated in research on the impact of technology on democratic infrastructure both in Iceland and abroad, and has taken on advisory roles for the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, and the Prime Minister’s Office. She has, for example, worked on legal submissions for the Icelandic government before the European Court of Human Rights, drafted the bill that became the law on sexual privacy, and led Iceland’s delegation in negotiations for a new United Nations convention on cybercrime.

María Rún has also delivered numerous lectures and conducted training throughout her career, both domestically and internationally. These include the lecture "Gendered Online Abuse: Responses and Remedies" at the United Nations Committee on the Status of Women in 2023, a presentation at Chatham House in London titled "Understanding the Cybercrime Economy" the same year, and a course on digital violence for judges and prosecutors in Moldova in February 2024.

María is a member of GREVIO, the Council of Europe’s expert group monitoring the implementation of the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. She also serves on the national committee of UN Women in Iceland and is Vice-Chair of the Icelandic Bar Association.