Dr. Jennifer Chandler
Dr. Jennifer A. Chandler studies the legal and ethical aspects of biomedical science and technology, with a focus on (1) the intersection of the brain sciences, law and ethics, and (2) legal policy related to organ donation and transplantation. She holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in the Law and Ethics of Brain Technologies, and teaches mental health law and neuroethics, tort law, and medico-legal issues. In 2024 she received the International Neuroethics Society’s highest honour, the Steven E Hyman Award for Distinguished Service to the Field of Neuroethics.
In her research, she collaborates with a diverse international group of academics and clinicians and she led the recent publication of the first international comparative study of the laws of “psychosurgery” with the contributions of leading functional neurosurgeons from Europe, Asia and the Americas. Her tri-national collaborative project – Hybrid Minds– brings together researchers from Switzerland, Germany and Canada to examine the implications of embedding artificial intelligence within neuroprosthetics.
Dr. Jennifer Chandler regularly contributes to Canadian governmental policy on challenging matters of biomedicine. She sat on the Government’s independent panel advising on safeguards related to medical assistance in dying in the context of mental illness in 2022, and was a member of the 2018 Government-commissioned National Expert Panel on Medical Assistance in Dying. She is a member of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and in 2024-2025, she chaired the Academy’s expert panel that produced a major report on fetal alcohol spectrum disorder for the Government of Canada.
She is an Associate Editor for the journal Neuroethics, and currently serves on international editorial boards in the field, including Clinical Neuroethics (part of the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics), the Springer Book Series Advances in Neuroethics, and the Palgrave-MacMillan Book Series Law, Neuroscience and Human Behavior.
Her ethico-legal and qualitative empirical research at the cutting edge of advances in biomedical science and technology has been funded by CIHR, SSHRC, Canadian Blood Services, the Stem Cell Network, Genome Canada, Law Foundation of Ontario and the Canadian National Transplant Research Program.
She holds degrees in Law from Harvard University and Queen’s University, and a degree in Biology from the University of Western Ontario. She a Full Professor in the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, with cross-appointment to the Faculty of Medicine.
