Dr Marianna Iliadou is Assistant Professor in Law at the University of Sussex. She joined Sussex Law School in August 2022, having previously held a Teaching Fellowship in Medical Law and Ethics at Durham Law School. She has an international and multi-jurisdictional academic background, with legal studies across Greece, Spain and the UK. She holds an LLB from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, an Advanced Master in Legal Sciences from Pompeu Fabra University, and a PhD in Law from Durham University. Her doctoral research was funded by the prestigious Modern Law Review Scholarship, and she also received the 2018-2019 Helen Reece Award, conferred annually on the best applicant in the fields of feminist legal theory, family law and related fields.

Marianna conducts research at the intersection of healthcare law, family law and human rights. Her work examines how legal systems regulate family formation and reproductive decision-making, especially where assisted reproduction challenges traditional assumptions about parenthood and state recognition. Her scholarship focuses on medically assisted reproduction, legal parenthood, domestic and cross-border surrogacy, children’s rights and statelessness, reproductive justice and gender discrimination. She is particularly interested in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and in how law mediates the relationship between reproduction, state authority and family life.

Marianna has published in leading and specialist outlets, including Medical Law Review and the European Yearbook on Human Rights, and has written in both English and Spanish. She has presented her research at conferences, workshops and invited events in the UK, Europe and internationally. Her 2019 piece in Medical Law Review was cited approvingly in the joint consultation paper on surrogacy law reform by the Law Commission of England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission, and was listed among Medical Law Review’s highly cited publications. Her research has also informed parliamentary and policy-facing debate. In 2025, she was selected by the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, on the basis of her expertise in surrogacy and cross-border reproductive issues, to contribute expert evidence to and act as an external reviewer for its 2026 POSTnote on surrogacy in the UK. Internationally, she was invited to present her research on surrogacy regulatory frameworks at the Italian Parliament in 2024, reflecting her high-level international policy engagement.