Tereza Hendl

I am a philosopher and bioethicist. My research interests include the epistemology, ethical and social aspects of emerging technologies, digital health, AI, decolonial perspectives on health technologies, and issues related to gender, sexuality and disability, with particular focus on the ethics of sex selection for social reasons.

At present, I work as a Research Associate and Project Co-lead on the project “META – mHealth: Ethical, legal and societal aspects in the technological age” at the Institute of Ethics, History and Theory of Medicine at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. This project explores the chances, benefits and risks of mobile health technologies on individual, social and global levels. I am particularly interested in debates about the democratizing potential of mHealth as well as interrogations of these technologies as a mode of reinforcing a particular self, that of the 'autonomous consumer'. I investigate how mHealth technologies can become more inclusive, informed by lived experiences and needs of diverse population groups, guided by values such as justice, equality and solidarity, and beneficent to a wide cohort of users.

Previously, I have worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Sydney and Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne on the Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project “Regulating autologous stem cell therapies in Australia” and a Research Associate on the ARC Discovery project "Disability and ability: how young people with impairments make the transitions to adulthood" at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Sydney.

I hold a PhD in Philosophy from Macquarie University with a dissertation investigating ethical aspects of sex selection for social reasons. During my PhD, I conducted a small empirical study interviewing Australian parents who have selected or desired to select their child's sex for gender purposes. My paper "A Feminist Critique of Justifications for Sex Selection" was awarded the 2015 Max Charlesworth Prize given by the Australasian Association of Bioethics and Health Law.

You can watch my TEDx talk raising awareness about the ethical implications of sex selection here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZg-GgToBEE.