Dr. Teshager (Tesh) W. Dagne is an Associate Member of the University of Ottawa Centre for Law, Technology and Society, an Associate Professor at York University’s School of Public Policy and Administration, and the Ontario Research Chair in Governing Artificial Intelligence.
He teaches in York’s Faculty of Graduate Studies Program in Science and Technology Studies and at Osgoode Hall Law School. Dr. Dagne earned his doctoral degree in law from Dalhousie University’s Schulich School of Law in 2012. Prior to joining York in May 2023, he was a tenured Associate Professor at Thompson Rivers University Faculty of Law.
With expertise in innovation and knowledge governance, Dr. Dagne specializes in intellectual property law and innovation policy. He has authored or co-authored key works, including Intellectual Property and Traditional Knowledge in the Global Economy (2014) and Canadian Intellectual Property Law (2022). His current research examines the intersection of law, technology, and society, focusing on the multidimensional governance of artificial intelligence and its societal, ethical, and legal implications in areas such as platform labour, biodiversity, agricultural innovation, neurotechnologies, and data sovereignty—particularly for Indigenous Peoples and marginalized communities in the Global South. As Ontario Research Chair, he investigates how intellectual property, privacy, and data governance interact with AI systems, including publications on digital labour and copyright, and ongoing work on digital sequence information regulation and AI in agriculture.
Through Open AIR, Dr. Dagne leads York’s contributions to the SSHRC-funded Canada-Africa Partnership on Intellectual Property for Climate Action, addressing AI governance in biodiversity and climate-resilient agriculture. He is co-principal investigator on an IDRC-funded project, “Artificial Intelligence / Intellectual Property / Propriété Intellectuelle / l’Intelligence Artificielle in Africa,” centering intellectual property in inclusive AI governance across Africa. As a member and Research Enhanced Hire in York’s Connected Minds Program, he conducts and supervises research on AI-enabled neurotechnologies in health. He is also a member of the Faculty of Graduate Studies Programs in Osgoode Hall Law School and Science and Technology Studies, where he recruits and supervises graduate students.
