UK PANDEMIC ETHICS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director
- Research Fellow With the Neuroscience
Alex McKeown is a Research Fellow with the Neuroscience, Ethics and Society (NEUROSEC) group in the Department of Psychiatry and the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities at the University of Oxford, and Deputy Director of the UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator. Before returning to academia to pursue a PhD in Bioethics, Alex spent three years working in medical education and policy research for a UK patient organisation.
At Oxford Alex has worked on research projects in dementia ethics and ethics of data linkage in mental health. He has published work in both of these as well a range of topics in bioethics and neuroethics, including: ethics of early intervention in children and young people; ethics in cognitive and moral enhancement; human enhancement and public health; ethics and philosophy of mind in artificial intelligence; ethics of integrated care; interdisciplinary methodology in applied ethics.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive of National Voices, the Leading Coalition of Health and Social Care Charities in England
Charlotte Augst, Chief Executive of National Voices, the leading coalition of health and social care charities in England
Job Titles:
- Research Fellow
- Social Scientist
Cian O'Donovan is a social scientist who researches how emerging technologies and societies shape each other. Two questions drive his work: how can the benefits of emerging technologies best contribute to a flourishing world? and What kind of knowledge, systems, human capabilities and collective action are required to imagine and build this world?
Cian works at UCL's Department of Science and Technology Studies where he has been investigating how research promises, practices and policy shape artificial intelligence and robotics in settings such as social care for the elderly and across issues such as sustainability. In 2014 he co-founded Uplift, Ireland's largest people-powered organisation for change, where he advises on strategy and governance.
Job Titles:
- Director of Medical Ethics and Professor of Medical Ethics at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics
- Professor of Medical Ethics
Dominic Wilkinson is Director of Medical Ethics and Professor of Medical Ethics at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, at the University of Oxford. He is a consultant in newborn intensive care at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, and a senior research fellow at Jesus College Oxford.
Dominic has published more than 140 academic articles relating to ethical issues in intensive care for adults, children and newborn infants. His co-authored books include Medical Ethics and Law, third edition (Elsevier 2019); Ethics, Conflict and Medical treatment for children, from disagreement to dissensus (Elsevier, 2018) which won the BMA President's Award in the 2018 British Medical Association Book Awards. He is also the author of the widely praised Death or Disability? The ‘Carmentis Machine' and decision-making for critically ill children (Oxford University Press 2013). He was Editor and Associate Editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics from 2011-2018.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Associate
- Socio
Dr Beth Wangarĩ Kamunge is a black-feminist socio-legal theorist with longstanding interests in critically exploring and addressing various forms of inequality. She is qualified as an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya (currently non-practicing). Prior to her PhD she worked in Advocacy and Research roles within the third sector in East Africa, on themes related to sexual and gender based violence within asylum-seeking and refugee contexts; and the Land Rights of women and Indigenous communities, particularly those facing Development Induced Displacement and Resettlement. Her PhD research at the University of Sheffield was initially envisioned as a ‘participatory' project that invited black women's embodied food stories, with a focus on considering how race, gender, class and other intersectional identities shape how we come to know what we know more generally. She was actively involved in the Critical Race and Ethnicities Network as a committee member, the Culture, Space and Difference Research Cluster, and co-founded and facilitated a multi-disciplinary reading group. She is the recipient of various academic awards including the Gender, Place and Culture's award for New and Emerging Scholars; the RGS-IBG Geographies of Justice Award amongst others. Following her PhD she taught various core units within the Bristol University's Law School at UG and PG levels (e.g. Land Law). She was nominated for the University of Bristol Teaching Awards for Innovative and Inspiring Teaching Award (2020/2021). More recently She has taken up a position as a Senior Research Associate at Bristol University's Law School.
Dr Sarah Chan is a Reader in Bioethics at the Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh; she is currently a Deputy Director of the Mason Institute for Medicine, Life Sciences and Law, and an Associate Director of the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society. Previously, from 2005 to 2015, she was a Research Fellow in Bioethics at the University of Manchester, first at the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy and from 2008 the Institute for Science Ethics and Innovation.
Sarah's research focuses on the ethics of new biomedical technologies, including gene therapy and genetic modification,stem cell and embryo research, reproductive medicine, synthetic biology, and human and animal enhancement. Her current work draws on these interests to explore the ethics of emerging modes of biomedicine at the interface of health care research, medical treatment and consumer medicine, including population-level health and genetic data research; the use of human biomaterials in both research and treatment; and access to experimental treatments and medical innovation.
Emma Nance is a PhD student in the University of Edinburgh's Wellcome Trust-funded programme One Health Models of Disease: Science, Ethics, and Society. This work is conducted in collaboration with the Roslin Institute, the Centre for Bioethics, Self, and Society, and the Usher Institute for Population Health Sciences and Informatics, all located at the University of Edinburgh.
Her doctoral thesis is entitled ‘The Bioethical Implications of Human and Non-Human Biosurveillance: Towards a Harmonised One Health and Global Justice Framework.' This research aims to provide greater insights into the shared practicalities and ethical responsibilities of biosurveillance actions, moving towards a harmonised One Health and global justice framework.
Emma has an LLM in Medical Law and Ethics and an English Literature MA Hons degree from the University of Edinburgh.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Diversity in Public Health
Gurch Randhawa, Professor of Diversity in Public Health and Director of the Institute for Health Research at the University of Bedfordshire
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive of the British Academy, a Visiting Professor at King 's College London and Deputy Chair of the Ada Lovelace Institute
Job Titles:
- Previous Director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics
Until June 2021 Hugh Whittall was the Director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, whose task is to identify and report on ethical questions raised by new developments in biological and medical research. Recent reports have covered areas including neurotechnology, emerging biotechnologies, children and clinical research, biodata and genome editing.
Hugh was previously at the Department of Health, where he was involved with the preparation of the Human Tissue Act 2004 and the setting up of the Human Tissue Authority. He was also involved in end-of-life issues and transplantation policy.
Prior to that Hugh spent three years at the European Commission in Brussels, involved in the funding and promotion of bioethics research, and he was for several years Deputy Chief Executive of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Neuroscience & Society
Ilina Singh is a Professor of Neuroscience & Society in the Department of Psychiatry and has been Co-Director of the Wellcome Centre for Ethics & Humanities at the University of Oxford since 2017. Her research focuses on the social and ethical dimensions of research and innovation in biomedicine, neuroscience and psychiatry. In the Department she leads the Neuroscience, Ethics & Society Team, with projects in child and adolescent psychiatry; global mental health; mental health data ethics; digital mental health; precision psychiatry; and patient and public involvement and engagement (as PPI lead in the Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre).
Ilina has been the recipient of a Wellcome Trust University Award in Biomedical Ethics (2006) and currently holds a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award in 2015 on the ethics of early intervention in child psychiatry. She conducts research across Africa through a collaboration with the Stanley Centre at the Broad Institute of Harvard/MIT on the science and ethics of neuropsychiatric genomics in Africa. Ilina is currently an advisor to the UKRI Adolescent Mental Health & Developing Mind Programme; the UKRI covid-19 Response Call Taskforce, and the Vatican-Lancet Commission on the Value of Life and supports initiatives at the US National Institutes of Health. She has published widely in eminent journals including Nature, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Social Science and Medicine, and the American Journal of Bioethics.
Job Titles:
- Bioethics and Director of the Disability Innovation Institute at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and Disability Activist
Jackie Leach Scully, Professor of Bioethics and Director of the Disability Innovation Institute at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and disability activist.
Jade provides part-time administrative and communications support for the project. She also works at the Nuffield Council as Office Administrator. Prior to working for the Council, Jade completed an MA in Visual Communication. She also undertakes Advocacy work for a number of disability charities.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive of the Deaf Health Charity, SignHealth
Job Titles:
- Professor of Philosophy at UCL
James Wilson is Professor of Philosophy at UCL, where he is also Co-Director of the Health Humanities Centre. He has been at UCL since 2008, with a secondment to the Royal Society as a Senior Policy Adviser in 2011-12. His research uses philosophy to help resolve practical problems, and uses practical problems to investigate gaps and weaknesses in existing philosophical theories.
He has published widely on public health ethics and health policy, and on the ownership and governance of ideas and information. His book Philosophy for Public Health and Public Policy: Beyond the Neglectful State will be published later in 2021 by Oxford University Press. Among other advisory roles, he is a member of the National Data Guardian's Panel and the Faculty of Public Health's Ethics Committee, and was a member of the Ethics Advisory Group for the NHS Covid-19 App.
Jamie Webb is a PhD student in the University of Edinburgh's Centre for Technomoral Futures. His doctoral project - AI and Ethical Decision-Making in a Resource-Limited Health Care Environment - focuses on the use of deliberative democracy as a model of procedural justice for developing ethical policy making in this area.
Jamie was previously a research associate in the Division of Medical Ethics at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. Before that he was a Fulbright Postgraduate Award recipient, travelling from the UK to study in the MA program at the NYU Center for Bioethics. He has a BA in Philosophy and an MSci in History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University.
John Coggon is Professor of Law in the Centre for Health, Law, and Society at the University of Bristol. He is also a member of the University of Bristol's Population Health Science Institute and Centre for Public Health, and an Honorary Member of the UK Faculty of Public Health (FPH). He sits on the ethics committees of the British Medical Journal and FPH, and is a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
John's research focuses on socio-legal questions in public and global health ethics and law and mental capacity law, examined in particular through methods of moral and political analysis. His academic works include the books What Makes Health Public? (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and, with Keith Syrett and A.M. Viens, Public Health Law: Ethics, Governance, and Regulation (Routledge, 2017). With A.M. Viens, John was commissioned by the Department of Health to write Public Health Ethics in Practice (2017), and he has contributed through FPH in the production of academic and public and practitioner-focused resources on public health ethics and law.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Fellow
- Senior Research Fellow in Applied Moral Philosophy
Jonathan Pugh is a Senior Research Fellow in Applied Moral Philosophy and Manager of Visitors Programmes for the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford. He recently led a Wellcome Trust funded project entitled The Ethics of Novel Therapeutic Applications of Deep Brain Stimulation. He has written on a range of topics in neuroethics, medical ethics and public health ethics, and is the author of Autonomy Rationality and Contemporary Bioethics (OUP 2020).
Job Titles:
- Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health
- Professor
Professor Julian Savulescu is an award-winning ethicist and moral philosopher, recognised internationally for his world-leading research into the ethics of future technologies. Trained in neuroscience, medicine, and philosophy, he has held the Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford since 2002.
Julian is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and has an honorary doctorate from the University of Bucharest. Prizes include the top Australian leadership award in the ‘thinker' category, presented by the Australian Prime Minister, and the Daniel M Wegner Award for research innovation.
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant
- Research Assistant With the Neuroscience
Kiran Kaur Manku is a Research Assistant with the Neuroscience, Ethics and Society (NEUROSEC) group in the Department of Psychiatry. Her research investigates the ethics of mental health and neurodevelopmental disorders within the Global Initiative of Neuropsychiatric Ethics (NeurogenE). At the UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator Kiran is working on Policy Engagement.
Kiran has a background in social science which she applies to bioethics. She conducts collaborative work on the spectrum of mental healthcare in Ghana and the ethics of digital mental health innovations across 5 African countries. In addition, she has published on capacity building and co-creation. Kiran also Co-Found a University of Oxford spin out, the 1928 Institute, as a platform for British Indians. In just over a year Kiran has conducted engagement with over 2,000 community members and established networks with senior policymakers to translate engagement to impact for the community.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor in Science and Technology Studies at UCL
Melanie Smallman is Associate Professor in Science and Technology Studies at UCL, Co-Director of the UCL Hub for Responsible Research and Innovation and a Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute.
Melanie's research focuses on how responsibility and ethics is understood and enacted in the development of research and technology, and how these issues affect public perceptions and social acceptance of technologies. Specifically, she is interested in the role of technologies in increasing inequality, and how these wider social impacts can be taken account of in ethical frameworks.
Melanie previously ran the science policy and communication consultancy Think-Lab and spent eight years as an adviser to the UK Government. She is a former Fellow in Science, Technology and Society at the Harvard Kennedy School for Government and has a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from UCL.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Medical and Family Sociology
Sarah Cunningham-Burley is Professor of Medical and Family Sociology and Dean of Molecular, Genetic and Population Health Sciences: Edinburgh Medical School, at the University of Edinburgh. She is also the University-wide lead for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
Sarah is also Co-Director of the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society, which is supported by Wellcome. She holds a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award, Transformations and Translations in Patienthood: cancer in the post-genomic era, jointly with Professor Anne Kerr at the University of Glasgow, outputs from which include Personalised Cancer Medicine: Future Crafting in the Genomic Era (Manchester University Press) and a graphic novel and other material developed by Ziggy's Wish.
Sarah has a strong interest in public engagement with research and its role in governance. She led the public engagement research strand for the FARR Institute and the Administrative Data Research Centre in Scotland, focusing on using dialogue and deliberation to understand public perceptions and interest in data-intensive health research and using engagement to support good governance.
Sarah is regularly involved in a range of public engagement activities and events aimed at dialogue about key issues in health research, and co-commissioned a Citizens' Jury on the research use of Guthrie Cards.
Shaun Griffin, former communications lead for the Pandemic Ethics Accelerator. Currently training to be a genomic counsellor on the National Scientist Training Programme.