Christiana Fountoulakis is Full Professor of Law at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, where she has held the Chair in Civil Law since 2010. She also holds numerous teaching positions at other universities in Switzerland and abroad and is a Member of the Swiss Research Council. She works in English, German, French and Greek and practises law as a legal expert and arbitrator.

She was elected to the ELI Council in September 2021.

Christiana studied law at the University of Basel, Switzerland, while also studying music and piano at the Music Conservatoire, Basel (Musikhochschule). She completed her doctoral thesis in 2004 (summa cum laude; Prix Stämpfli) and became Max-Geldner Assistant Professor in Law at the University of Basel in the same year. She finished her post-doctoral qualification (Habilitation) in 2009. Before taking over the Chair at Fribourg University, she worked as a scholar in residence with a major law firm in London and was Visiting Professor at the Center for Transnational Legal Studies (Georgetown Law Center/London). In 2010, Christiana was awarded the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Bonn/Germany.

Professor Fountoulakis is the author and editor of more than 150 publications, including several books, on contract law, international sales law, international commercial arbitration, media law, family law, adult protection, consumer law, private international law and EU private law. Her works have been cited by the German Federal Court (BGH), the Swedish Supreme Court (Högsta Domstolen) and the Swiss Federal Tribunal (100 times by June 2022). She is on the editorial board of several international journals, a member of several boards of foundations and on the board of directors of several scientific institutes.