Margaret Mary Varilek is a US-trained attorney and a senior legal researcher at Smartlex S.r.l. since 2023, and currently a PhD candidate at IMT Alti Studi Lucca, Italy. Her expertise covers research ethics, data protection, EU regulatory compliance on products, and most recently, EU cybersecurity law.

Her Ph.D. research focuses on clarifying legal responsibility for cybersecurity in health critical infrastructure that relies on cloud technology. Her research delves into the intricate legal relationships between different actors involved in cloud-based health infrastructure, such as healthcare providers, cloud service providers, and data processors. Additionally, she is analyzing the potential impact of the European Health Data Space on data access and security for the roles of different EHDS stakeholders, including those who will be using EU Digital Identity Wallets. Margaret's research aims to identify "gray areas" in cybersecurity regulation in the EU and Italy for legal responsibility of cybersecurity in cloud infrastructures supporting digital health care, and work to identify best practices.

Since 2017, she works as an external Ethics Expert for the European Commission.

Previously, she worked in Italy as a Compliance & Sustainability Manager at Electrolux Italia and in Brussels, Belgium in EU competition and trade law.