Mackenzie Graham

I received my PhD in Philosophy from the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, in 2016. My research interests are at the intersection of moral philosophy and bioethics. I wrote my thesis on the moral status and well-being of patients diagnosed as being in a vegetative state, but who have demonstrated 'covert consciousness' through functional neuroimaging.

In 2018 I moved from Canada to the UK, and began a research post at Oxford University. I am primarily working on problems of well-being in people with catastrophic brain injury. What is it like to be in a state of disordered consciousness? Is this a life worth living? I am also interested in the ways in which well-being is understood in a health-care context, such as in decision-making at the end of life.

I try to work as much as possible with scientists and health care practitioners, to address the ethical issues they see in their own work, and to bring moral philosophy to bear on challenging (and exciting!) real-world problems.