The new professor arrives at Miami Law fresh from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, where her focus was on law and technology and consumer finance law. Before that, she was a technology and human rights fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. She has held research positions at Yale, Oxford, the European Corporate Governance Institute, and Queen Mary University of London in the city of her birth.
The daughter of Indian parents, Aggarwal grew up in Geneva and London but "feels at home in the world," she said. "London is my first home, but I’ve made many places around the world my home over the years. I feel connected to many different communities, cultures, and languages. The United States, as diverse as it is, may be my chosen home. It keeps drawing me back!”
"Both intellectually and culturally, I feel that Miami Law is a good fit," she said. "I have a background in international law, and I've had a very international experience. Miami as a city, and then as a school, has a very international outlook, which resonates a lot with my own. Miami Law has also always been very tech forward, with faculty who have made some of the earliest contributions in tech law. And the school has nurtured expertise in financial law, which is rare. There are several people here who I could collaborate with and learn from."
Before entering academia, she was a lawyer for the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C., where she advised countries on financial and fiscal law reform and worked extensively on initiatives to reform the legal framework for sovereign debt restructuring. She continues to advise the IMF as a short-term expert. She began her legal career in London at Clifford Chance LLP, specializing in EU financial regulation and sovereign debt restructuring.
An expert on fintech, Aggarwal appeared on WNYC to discuss the rapid rise of “Buy Now, Pay Later,” and the risks to consumers from this new type of less-regulated credit product.
Travel and art
Aggarwal's life experience has taken her far afield, including extended stays in the Far East. "I like different places for different reasons," she said. "I'm fascinated by Japan culturally and artistically, and just love being there. South Korea, too." She is also deeply interested in art and is an accomplished photographer, painter, and ceramics artist. She says art and scholarship, for her, go hand in hand.
"In both contexts, I'm doing something quite similar. Whether it’s a legal framework or a scenery, I'm observing, analyzing, interpreting, figuring out how to describe it and how to make changes to it," she said. "And the two practices, they feed off each other. My artistic practice helps my writing practice, and vice versa. If I feel creatively blocked in my writing, I might paint or sketch, and it will unblock me, give me new inspiration."
Aggarwal received her B.A. in law at the London School of Economics and Political Science and her Ph.D. in law at the University of Oxford. She is a solicitor admitted to practice in England and Wales.
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