Jennifer Chandler

Jennifer A. 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 has published widely in legal, bioethical and health sciences journals and is the co-editor of the book Law and Mind: Mental Health Law and Policy in Canada (2016).

She is internationally recognized for her research and writing in the law and ethics of the brain sciences. She 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 Springer Book Series Advances in Neuroethics, and the Palgrave-MacMillan Book Series Law, Neuroscience and Human Behavior. She sits as a member of the Advisory Board of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research's Institute for Neuroscience, Mental Health and Addiction.

She is also active in relation to the law, ethics and policy of organ donation and transplantation. She chairs the ethics committee of the Canadian Society of Transplantation, and serves as a member of the ethics committee of the Ontario Trillium Gift of Life Network. She holds the Bertram Loeb Research Chair at the University of Ottawa, leading several research teams addressing trust in the organ and tissue donation system, family decision-making at end of life, and the law and ethics of ante-mortem interventions intended to support organ donation. She is also a co-lead of the Research Core on Ethics, Law and Society for the Canadian National Transplant Research Program.

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.

At the University of Ottawa, Professor Chandler teaches courses in Mental Health Law and Neuroethics, Medical-Legal Issues, and Tort Law, and holds an interdisciplinary reading group called “Mind Brain Law” on ethico-legal questions raised by emerging research in the brain sciences, behavioural genetics, and mental health law. She is a member of the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics, the Centre for Law, Technology and Society and the University of Ottawa's Brain Mind Research Institute.

She 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 Hon. Mr. Justice John Sopinka of the Supreme Court of Canada.