Dr Nayeli Urquiza

Lecturer in Law (Core Law)

Profile

Dr Urquiza Haas is a Lecturer in Law (Core) and an interdisciplinary legal scholar whose research draws on socio-legal studies to explore the regulation of medicines, drugs and healthcare practices at the edge of legality. She is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

She is currently Co-Investigator for the 6-year project "Between deception and dissent: Regulating unproven, disproven and misleading health-related claims" (2025-2031). This international research project aims to understand what misinformation means in the context of healthcare regulation, how lines of regulatory tolerance and intervention are drawn, through which regulatory techniques, and to what effect.

Before joining Lancaster Law School, Dr Urquiza was a Research Associate at the University of Kent for the Wellcome Trust project "Law, knowledge and the making of 'modern healthcare,'" led by Professor Emilie Cloatre and funded by the Wellcome Investigator Award (2017-2022). During that time, she was also a Visiting Fellow at the Law, Health and Justice Centre at the University of Technology Sydney in 2017.

She was also awarded the Witteveen Memorial Fellowship in Law and Humanities in 2016. Her postdoctoral research project explored the complexities around asylum claims, drawing on literary studies and feminist philosophy.

Her doctoral research, funded by Kent Law School's Studentship (2010-2013), contested traditional concepts and practices in criminal law through an interdisciplinary analysis of vulnerability and gender, applied to the case of women who act as drug mules and have been sentenced for drug importation offences in England and Wales.

Before her academic career, she worked as a freelance writer and researcher in the NGO and news media sectors, including the International Press Institute (IPI), and in projects funded through Harm Reduction International and the Centre for Human Rights and Drug Policy at Essex University.

Selected Publications

States, law, and the regulation of controversial health claims: consolidating a research agenda between disciplines and contexts
Cloatre, E., Pickersgill, M., Atuire, C.A., Enright, M., Friesen, P., Ndoye, T., Urquiza-Haas, N. 6/08/2025 In: Wellcome Open Research.
Comment/debate

In the shadow of the healing rainbow: belonging and identity in the regulation of traditional medicine in Mauritius
Urquiza-Haas, N., Cloatre, E. 31/08/2023 In: Griffith Law Review. 32, 2, p. 236-258. 23 p.
Journal article

Tradition and reinvention: the making and unmaking of herbal medicines in the UK
Urquiza-Haas, N., Cloatre, E. 30/06/2022 In: Journal of Law and Society. 49, 2, p. 317-338. 21 p.
Journal article

Misdirection and the Regulation of Herbalism in France and England
Cloatre, E., Urquiza-Haas, N. 15/05/2022 In: Science & Technology Studies. 35, 2, p. 30-51. 22 p.
Journal article

Palgrave Pivot (Publisher)
Publication peer-review

Governing Wellness in Ghana
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

Health and Human Rights Journal (Journal)
Publication peer-review

Journal of Medical Ethics (Journal)
Publication peer-review

10th STS Italia Conference
Participation in conference - Academic

Doing socio-legal research
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

EASST-4S 2024
Participation in conference - Academic

SLS Shifting Dynamics in Medical Law
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

Literati Award for ‘Highly Commended’ Paper 2012
Prize (including medals and awards)

Witteveen Memorial Fellowship in Law and the Humanities 2016
Prize (including medals and awards)

Lamya Al Dehailan

Lamya Al Dehailan

PhD student

  • Human rights and global vulnerabilities