Prof. Jennifer Chandler is the Bertram Loeb Research Chair in Organ and Tissue Donation, and a Faculty member at the Centre for Law, Technology and Society, the Brain Mind Research Institute and the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Ottawa, where she is a Full Professor within the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section.
Professor Chandler researches and writes about the legal and ethical aspects of biomedical science and technology, with focuses on mental health law and policy, neuroethics, organ donation and regenerative medicine. She is internationally recognized for her research and writing in the law and ethics of the brain sciences, has been published widely in legal, bioethical and health sciences journals, and is the co-editor of the recent book Law and Mind: Mental Health Law and Policy in Canada (2016). She is the coordinator of an international research project HYBRIDMIND, bringing together researchers from Switzerland, Germany and Canada to examine the ethical and legal aspects of incorporating artificial intelligence within neuroprostheses.
Professor Chandler is a former elected member of the Board of Directors of the International Neuroethics Society, and serves on international editorial boards in the field, including the journal Neuroethics, and the Palgrave-MacMillan Book Series Law, Neuroscience and Human Behavior.
Professor Chandler is active in public policy in several areas of biomedical practice. She chairs the ethics committee for the Canadian Society of Transplantation and sits as a member of the ethics committees of the Ontario Trillium Gift of Life Network and Canadian Society of Transplantation. She is also a co-lead of the Research Core on Ethics, Law and Society for the Canadian National Transplant Research Program. She was recently appointed to the Government of Canada’s independent expert review committee looking at safeguards appropriate to medical assistance in dying in the context of mental illness. She is an appointed member of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Advisory Board for the Institute for Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction. Recently, she completed a term as interim director of the University of Ottawa Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics.
Professor Chandler holds degrees in Law from Harvard University and Queen’s University, and a degree in Biology from the University of Western Ontario. She joined the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law in 2002, after serving as clerk to the Honorable Mr. Justice John Sopinka of the Supreme Court of Canada.