Sejal Parmar is an international human rights scholar and practitioner whose expertise and research interests lie broadly in the field of freedom of expression. She is currently a Lecturer in Law and the Director of the Human Rights Forum at the School of Law and Fellow at the Centre for Media Freedom at the University of Sheffield. She is also a Visiting Professor and Fellow at the Center on Media, Data and Society at the Central European University in Vienna, where was previously a tenured Assistant Professor of Law. Parmar previously worked as Senior Adviser to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Representative on Freedom of the Media and as Senior Legal Officer at ARTICLE 19.

Alongside her academic work, Parmar regularly acts as a consultant for a range of intergovernmental, non-governmental and private sector organisations. She has worked as a consultant for the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect (to develop the UN Strategy and Action Plan on Hate Speech: Detailed Guidance on implementation for UN field presences and the Guidance Note on Addressing and Countering COVID-19 Related Hate Speech) and serves as a Co-Rapporteur of the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on Combating Hate Speech. She is a member of the academic constituency of the Global Network Initiative, a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre, and an Advisory Board Member of Rights for Peace.

Parmar has published broadly in the field of international human rights law and is currently writing a monograph on Freedom of Expression Under Pressure under contract with Cambridge University Press. She is an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Human Rights.