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Maxwell J. Smith, PhD, MSc

Director, Centre for Bioethics; Associate Professor and CIHR Applied Public Health Chair in Ethics and Health Emergencies, School of Health Studies, Faculty of Health Sciences, Western University

Research Interests:

His research is primarily in the area of public health ethics, with a focus on infectious disease ethics and the ethical demands that health equity and social justice place on governments and institutions to protect and promote the public’s health.

Dr. Maxwell Smith is a bioethicist, Associate Professor, and CIHR Applied Public Health Chair in Ethics and Health Emergencies in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Western University. Professor Smith also serves as an Associate Director of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy and has appointments in the Department of Philosophy, Schulich Interfaculty Program in Public Health, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Centre for Research on Health Equity and Social Inclusion, and Institute for Earth and Space Exploration.

Trevor J. Bieber, PhD

Research Ethics Officer, Non-Medical Research Ethics Board, Office of Human Research Ethics, Western Research - Western University

Research Interests:

Trevor received academic philosophical training in Normative Ethics and History of Ethics at Western University. He explores why modern moral theories are unable to accommodate moral intuitions about the value and role of personal relationships for living ethical lives. Currently, he is investigating ethical implications of modern forms of bureaucracy, especially in the context of technological advances and evolving structures of power. He works as a Research Ethics Officer for the Non-Medical Research Ethics Board at Western University offering expertise in Research Ethics and Compliance. Trevor looks forward to bringing both administrative experience and a humanities’ perspective to bioethical discussions.

Arthur Brown, PhD

Professor, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology; Principal Investigator, Robarts Research Institute; Chair, Animal Care Committee, Western University

Jacquelyn Burkell, PhD

Associate Vice-President (Research) and Professor, Faculty of Information & Media Studies, Western University

Research Interests:

Jacquelyn Burkell is currently Associate Vice-President (Research). She holds a PhD in Psychology (Cognitive Science) from Western and is a professor in the Faculty of Information & Media Studies. Jacquelyn served as the faculty’s Assistant Dean of Research for seven years and chaired the Associate Deans (Research) group from 2016-2018. Throughout her career, Jacquelyn has served on a wide variety of academic committees, including the 2016 URB Task Force Steering Committee – Support for Research in Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities at Western. A highly collaborative scholar, Jacquelyn is a co-investigator on two SSHRC partnership grants – one examining artificial intelligence in the context of justice, the other focused on youth equality and privacy online. Her latest research focuses on the (in)adequacy of individual informed consent for the collection and use of personal information, with the goal of proposing alternative models informed by the expectations and need of the technology users. More broadly, her research focuses on the social impact of technology and examines how technological mediation changes social interaction and information behaviour.

Katelyn Esmonde, PhD

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Information & Media Studies and School of Kinesiology, Western University

Research Interests:

Katelyn Esmonde’s research focuses on the ethics, practices, and policies of health information and technology, focusing on two main themes. First, she examines the ethical challenges arising from personal, institutional, research, and state efforts to promote health, often with a focus on digital health technologies and physical activity. This work has spanned numerous contexts, including digital contact tracing in the COVID-19 pandemic response, the US state-level COVID-19 response, physical activity public health campaigns such as Play Streets, and mobile health in low- and middle-income countries. Second, she explores how digital health technologies, such as mobile health and fitness apps, shape how people experience physical activity and their body. Esmonde has explored this question as it relates to gendered personal fitness practices, as well as institutional uses of digital technologies in workplace wellness programs and in physical education. She draws on qualitative methods, including document analysis, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews.

Nicole Fice, PhD

Assistant Professor, School of Health Studies, Faculty of Health Sciences, Western University

Research Interests:

  • Public health ethics
  • Feminist approaches to biomedical ethics
  • Autonomy and feminist relational conceptions of autonomy
  • Housing and homelessness
  • Systems of power, privilege, and oppression
  • Harm reduction and drug use.
  • ORCID: 0009-0008-2837-8538

Professor Fice defended her PhD in philosophy from Western University in 2022. She held a 3-year Limited Term Appointment at Trent University from 2022-2025, where she taught courses in biomedical ethics, feminist philosophy, and moral philosophy. Currently, she has a 5-year Limited Term Appointment in the School of Health Studies at Western University. Professor Fice’s work in biomedical ethics develops arguments about what we should do to address issues we care about and why a given approach may or may not be morally justifiable. In her theoretical work, Professor Fice uses the nuances seen in real-world issues to revise how we define concepts, including notions of privilege, autonomy, and more. Her research emphasizes the practical importance of clearly defining conceptual terms, since our understanding of concepts impacts what we think we ought to do when responding to real-world bioethical issues. The feminist orientation of her research prioritizes understanding and addressing systems of oppression in theory and practice. Recently, Professor Fice’s research has focused on ethical issues in the context of homelessness and policy responses to it. Her work clarifies the importance of autonomy while avoiding harmful myths about choice using feminist relational conceptions of autonomy. Professor Fice also studies the ethics of encampment evictions, focusing on the autonomy and dignity of encampment residents.

Ken Kirkwood, PhD

Associate Professor, School of Health Studies, Faculty of Health Sciences, Western University

Research Interests:

Ken Kirkwood is an Associate Professor of Applied Health Ethics in Western University's Faculty of Health Sciences, and a Medical Consultant in ethics in the Department of Surgery at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry's Postgraduate program. 

Dan Lizotte, PhD

Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and Schulich Interfaculty Program in Public Health; Director, Rotman Institute of Philosophy, Western University

Research Interests:

  • Population health
  • Social determinants of health
  • Epistemology and evidence
  • Causal reasoning
  • Involuntary treatment
  • ORCID: 0000-0002-9258-8619

Dr. Dan Lizotte, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at The University of Western Ontario. His research aims to support health decision-making by developing and applying machine learning and statistical tools to new sources of data including electronic health records and social media to better support patients and health professionals, particularly in public health and primary health care. His methodological research combines machine learning, optimal sequential decision-making, and multiple objective optimisation. Dr. Lizotte has been formally teaching AI methods to a diverse set of students for over ten years, and he teaches the Public Health Informatics course for in the Schulich Interfaculty Program in Public Health at Western. He is also Director of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy at Western, and he has a strong interest in intersectionality and other critical social theory and how they should inform the development and deployment of AI tools that support health equity. He is currently working with the Alliance for Healthier Communities to develop tools for research and decision support.

Carolyn McLeod, PhD, FRSC

Distinguished University Professor, Department of Philosophy, and Associate Dean Research and Graduate Studies, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Western University

Research Interests:

  • Trust and distrust in medicine
  • Patient-health care professional relationships
  • Conscientious objections in health care
  • Medical AI
  • Health inequalities
  • ORCID: 0000-0002-0258-9117

Carolyn McLeod's expertise lies in applied ethics, especially procreative, professional, and institutional ethics; in feminist philosophy, especially feminist moral psychology; and in moral philosophy, particularly on the nature of moral concepts such as trust, autonomy, and conscience.

Elysée Nouvet, PhD

Associate Professor, School of Health Studies, Faculty of Health Sciences, Western University

Research Interests:

  • Global health partnerships and ethics
  • Participatory ethics
  • Humanitarian aid
  • Culture and bioethics
  • ORCID: 0000-0002-1607-3453

Professor Elysée Nouvet is a medical anthropologist whose work is united by commitment to bringing the lived experiences of those with less power in health programs and multi-partner collaborations to bear on policy and practice. She draws on qualitative, ethnographic, and participatory methods in this work with health centres, humanitarian aid organizations, locally-controlled NGOs, ethics committees, and the World Health organization. Nouvet has completed several studies in Canada and internationally, with current research activities funded primarily by Wellcome Trust and CIHR grants. Her doctoral dissertation (2011, York University) focused on the social determinants, expression, and impacts of pain and distress in Nicaragua. She is a member of: the Ethics Advisory with the Coalition for Equitable Research in low-resource settings (CERCLE); the Scientific Advisory for the Observatoire en Ethique et Santé Humanitaire; Centre de Recherche et Ethique Appliquée (Kinshasa); and on the WHO technical advisory for Social and Behavioural Sciences research informing best practices in the latest Mpox emergency. She is also co-editor with Dr. Mary Ndu of Western's Global Health Equity hub.

Peggy O'Neil, PhD

Assistant Professor, Brescia School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, Western University

Research Interests:

  • Research-creation
  • Poetics
  • Aesthetics
  • Humanistic education
  • Thomas Khun’ epistemic values

Peggy O'Neil has held various health leadership positions in education, media/communications, and professional practice, in small, community hospitals, long term care centres, and tertiary, teaching/research health centres in Ontario. For several years at London Health Sciences Centre, she was a member of the ethics education committee as well as the legal affairs/risk management consultation team, where complex policy, leadership, and practice, themes arose such as duty to humanity, systemic morality, institutional values, through to personal integrity. In her teaching and research, Peggy now emphasizes the arts and humanities, distinct from science and social science, to conceptualize, explore, and advance scholarship on the human condition.

Carlos Quiñonez, DMD, MSc, PhD, FRCDC, FCAHS

Vice Dean and Director of Dentistry at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University

Research Interests:

  • Dental ethics
  • Public health ethics

Dr. Carlos Quiñonez is a dental public health specialist and is the Vice Dean and Director of Dentistry at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University. He studies the history, politics, and economics of dentistry, and his research is regularly used by public and private agencies to enhance their policy and practice.

Jacob Shelley, SJD, LLB, LLM, MTS

Associate Professor, Faculty of Law and School of Health Studies, Faculty of Health Sciences, Western University

Research Interests:

His primary area of interest is the proper limits and role of law in promoting public health and preventing chronic disease. In addition, he is generally interested in issues that arise at the interface of law, health science, and ethics, with a particular focus on the best interests standard.

Jacob joined Western University in 2015. He holds a joint appointment with the Faculty of Law and the School of Health Studies in the Faculty of Health Sciences and is Associate Faculty with the Rotman Institute of Philosophy. Dr. Shelley is a co-director of the Health Ethics, Law & Policy (HELP) Lab at Western. He has a doctorate in law (SJD) from the University of Toronto, where he was a Vanier Fellow with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Dr. Shelley obtained his LLB (2007) and LLM (2009) from the University of Alberta, and he has a MTS from Conrad Grebel University College (2006).

Rob Sibbald, MSc, HEC-C, CHE

Director of Health Ethics, London Health Sciences Centre, and Adjunct Professor, Department of Family Medicine, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University

Research Interests:

Robert Sibbald is Director of Health Ethics at London Health Sciences Centre, where he leads the organization’s clinical and organizational ethics program. Since joining LHSC in 2007, Robert has advanced ethical practice across patient care, education, policy, and research environments, and has contributed to provincial and national health policy development.

Robert’s work focuses on resolving complex ethical issues in acute care, both clinical and institutionally. He has chaired and served on numerous organizational committees, served on multiple Board committees, and is recognized for his leadership in promoting ethical reflection and dialogue particularly when there are environmental factors working against slower/deliberative approaches. Robert is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Western University and a Research Collaborator with Western’s new Centre for Bioethics.

A Certified Health Executive, Robert holds an MSc in Bioethics from the University of Toronto and is an active member of the Canadian College of Health Leaders and the Canadian Bioethics Society. He has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and regularly contributes to ethics education and policy initiatives across Ontario.

Anthony Skelton, PhD

Professor, Department of Philosophy, Western University

Research Interests:

  • Abortion
  • Treatment of children in health care, including children's consent, enhancement, and mandatory vaccination.
  • ORCID: 0000-0003-0052-7243

Anthony Skelton is currently a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. He has held visiting positions at the University of Oxford and at Fondation Brocher in Hermance, CHE. His research is in the areas of normative ethics, the history of ethics, and applied ethics. He has published articles in Ethics, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Law Quarterly Review, The British Medical Journal, and Utilitas, and in volumes published by Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Routledge. He is the co-editor (with Lisa Forsberg and Isra Black) of Consenting Children: Autonomy, Responsibility, Well-Being (Proceedings of the British Academy, 2025) and of Bioethics in Canada, second edition (Oxford University Press, 2019). He is the author of Sidgwick’s Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2025). In 2015, he received the Arts and Humanities Teaching Excellence Award, in 2019–20 he was the Graham and Gail Wright Distinguished Scholar in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and in 2023–25 he was Faculty Scholar. He has written popular pieces for The Conversation, The Globe and Mail, The Winnipeg Free Press, and Western News. He has appeared on television and on radio, including on the BBC, the CBC, CTV News, Global News, and TV Ontario. In 2022, he was the recipient (with Lisa Forsberg) of the American Philosophical Association Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest Prize.

Luke Stark, PhD

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Information & Media Studies, Western University; Coordinating Director, Starling Centre for Just Technologies and Just Societies, Western University; Azrieli Global Scholar, Future Flourishing Program, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR)

Research Interests:

  • Applied ethics
  • Human values in the design of health/medical systems
  • Ethics of AI
  • ORCID: 0000-0002-2537-846X

Luke Stark is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario. His work interrogates the historical, social, and ethical impacts of computing and artificial intelligence technologies, particularly those mediating social and emotional expression. He completed his PhD in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University in 2016 and holds an Honours BA and MA in History from the University of Toronto. Prior to joining FIMS, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Fairness, Accountability, Transparency and Ethics (FATE) Group at Microsoft Research in Montreal, QC, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Dartmouth College, and a Fellow and Affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

Gail Teachman, PhD

Associate Professor, School of Occupational Therapy, Western University

Research Interests:

Gail Teachman is an Associate Professor at Western University’s School of Occupational Therapy where her research is focused on examining the social, ethical and political contexts that shape how childhood disability is understood and acted on, with a view to expanding possibilities for children identified as disabled to flourish. Professor Teachman’s research is informed by critical disability studies, childhood ethics, critical social theory and occupational science perspectives. She is committed to ensuring that her research contributes knowledge that has been directly informed by children’s perspectives on living with disability so that their views can be given due weight in the design of programs and services that directly impact their lives. To advance knowledge of the participation, inclusion and occupations of disabled children and youth and improve understandings of how their lives, identities, and moral experiences are influenced by rehabilitation practices, Professor Teachman is developing innovative participatory research approaches.

Daniel Wyzynski, HEC-C, MHSc

Clinical and Organizational Ethicist & Clinician Scientist, Health Ethics, London Health Sciences Centre

Research Interests:

  • I am currently interested in the challenges of moral integrity and moral courage across clinical settings, particularly when voicing dissent is both difficult and uncomfortable.
  • ORCID: 0000-0001-9892-6685

Daniel Wyzynski is a Clinical and Organizational Ethicist working at the intersection of healthcare practice, research ethics, and policy development. With a background in philosophy and health sciences, Daniel's work focuses on navigating complex ethical challenges in clinical care, supporting values-based decision-making, and strengthening ethical infrastructure across healthcare systems. In his role, Daniel offers ethics consultation and education across hospital programs, assisting teams, patients, and families with questions of consent, capacity, moral distress, resource allocation, and end-of-life care. He also serves as a member to Western's Health Science Research Ethics Board which facilitates the ethical oversight of clinical and health systems research. Daniel's research as a Clinician Scientist explores how healthcare policies and institutional practices impact ethical decision-making, particularly in the areas of pediatric mental health and caregiver support. He is committed to bridging theory and practice to ensure that ethical reflection informs not only bedside care, but also the systems and structures that shape it. Whether through clinical consultation, education, or policy analysis, Daniel's goal is to promote ethical practices that are responsive, inclusive, and grounded in the lived realities of those receiving and delivering care.

Alexander Summers, MD, MPH, CCFP, FRCPC

Medical Officer of Health, Middlesex-London Health Unit; Adjunct Professor, Interfaculty Program in Public Health, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University

Research Interests:

Alexander Summers is the Medical Officer of Health for the Middlesex-London Health Unit, a position held since March 2022, and previously the Associate Medical Officer of Health starting July 2018. Dr. Summers holds a Bachelor of Science from Queens University, and a Master of Public Health from Harvard University. He completed his residency in public health and preventive medicine at the University of Toronto.

Launa Elliott, RN, BScN, MHSc (Bioethics), HCEC-C

Clinical and Organizational Ethicist, London Health Sciences Centre, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University

Research Interests:

  • Nursing ethics in practice
  • Advance care planning
  • Moral distress experienced by health care providers
  • Alternate level of care and system level constraints that delay patient transitions from acute care

Launa is a critical care nurse who found herself experiencing moral distress providing life sustaining therapies to patients. She joined a research team to better understand how patient wishes and values inform patient and provider decisions about resuscitation status in acute care. Through this endeavour she found a passion for ethics and continued in her schooling to complete a Masters of Health Sciences in Bioethics. Launa is a founding member of the Ontario Practicing Health Ethicists Community of Practice. She works at advancing the incorporation of ethics into daily practice through her commitment to educating future health care providers.

Marleen Van Laethem, BSc, MHSc

Ethicist, St. Joseph's Health Care London

Research Interests:

  • Clinical and organizational healthcare ethics

Since 2010, Marleen Van Laethem has been the Ethicist at St. Joseph’s Health Care London, covering all sites. She’s worked in ethics for more than 20 years, previously at Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and prior to that, at St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto. At that time, she worked extensively in research ethics.

Marleen’s Master of Health Science degree is in Bioethics from University of Toronto. Her Bachelor of Science degree is in Biology, from McMaster University.

Since spring 2021, she is also an Adjunct Professor at Saint Paul University in Ottawa.

Jeanne Webber, MHSc, MSL, MSW, RSW, HEC-C

Clinical and Organizational Ethicist, London Health Sciences Centre

Research Interests:

  • Applied ethics
  • Healthcare access and equity
  • Moral distress
  • Feminist ethics

Jeanne Webber is a Clinical and Organizational Ethicist at London Health Sciences Centre, where she provides ethics consultation across three hospital sites and a broad spectrum of clinical programs. In addition to clinical consultation, she contributes to ethics education for staff, trainees, and leadership, and participates in the development and review of organizational policies to support ethically sound healthcare practices. With a foundation in social work and over 15 years of clinical experience in both hospital and community-based healthcare, she brings a deeply informed, patient-centered lens to ethical decision-making.

She is a Certified Healthcare Ethics Consultant and a member of the Health Sciences Research Ethics Board (HSREB) at Western University. Jeanne holds a Master of Health Sciences in Bioethics from the University of Toronto, a Master of Studies in Law from Western University’s Faculty of Law, and a Master of Social Work from York University. Her undergraduate studies were completed at Dalhousie University.

With extensive clinical experience in the areas of emergency medicine, trauma, psychiatry, community mental health, and community governance. Jeanne brings a clinically grounded and socially responsive perspective to her role as a clinical ethicist. Her background as a social worker has equipped her with deep insight into the complex psychosocial dynamics that shape healthcare decision-making. Jeanne also contributes to community health governance, offering strategic insight into ethical decision-making at the systems level. She is adept at fostering inclusive, values-based dialogue among patients, families, clinicians, and leadership, supporting ethically sound and patient-centered care across diverse healthcare settings.

Jasmine Gunkel, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy

Research Interests:

  • Intimacy in medicine
  • Reproductive ethics
  • Research ethics
  • Animal ethics
  • AI
  • ORCID: 0000-0001-9485-5250

Dr. Jasmine Gunkel completed her PhD in Philosophy at the University of Southern California. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, serving on a team that performed both clinical ethics and research ethics consultations. She’s worked on issues in reproductive ethics, the use of animals in research, the role of AI in medical care, supported decision making, and the conduct of IRBs. Most of her research centers on intimacy and how it shapes the duties of medical practitioners, researchers, and us all.

Shehzad Ali, MBBS, MPH, MSC, PhD

Associate Professor & Associate Chair (Research), Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics

Research Interests:

  • Distributive justice
  • Health equity
  • Mental health care ethics
  • Global justice
  • ORCID: 0000-0002-8042-3630

Dr. Shehzad Ali holds a Canada Research Chair in Public Health Economics at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry. He is cross-appointed with the Western Centre for Public Health and Family Medicine. Dr. Ali is also Visiting Professor at University of York (UK), and Honorary Fellow at Macquarie University (Australia). He holds a PhD in Social Policy (Health Economics, University of York), MSc in Medical Statistics (University of Leicester), Masters in Public Health (University of Leeds) and Bachelors in Medicine and Surgery (Dow University of Health Sciences).

Dr. Ali’s research addresses the ethical and policy challenge of how to allocate limited health system resources both efficiently and fairly. He works at the intersection of economics, equity, and health services research, pioneering methods to integrate equity into economic evaluations. His current CIHR-funded study, in partnership with the Canadian Drug Agency (CDA), is re-engineering health policy decision-making for more equitable allocation of resources.

His scholarship spans the development of health services equity indicators, evaluation of interventions and policies through randomized and observational studies, health technology assessment, and predictive algorithms for treatment outcomes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Ali provided expert testimony to the House of Commons (44th Parliament) on Vaccine Equity and Intellectual Property Rights (https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/FAAE/meeting-14/notice), shaping recommendations to address global inequities. He has also contributed to equitable approaches to mental health care, including treatment strategies adopted by England’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies program.

Dr. Ali’s work combines methodological innovation with policy relevance, advancing fairness and accountability in health systems globally.

Erika Basile, MPEd

Director, Research Ethics and Compliance Western Research, Western University

Research Interests:

  • My interests in bioethics include research ethics oversight, the development of ethical frameworks for multi-site and collaborative research, and the advancement of efficient, harmonized ethics review processes. I am particularly focused on institutional bioethics, regulatory compliance, and fostering national partnerships that support ethical integrity across diverse research areas

Erika Basile is Director of Research Ethics and Compliance at Western University, where she leads initiatives that support ethical and compliant research involving humans and animals. With more than 20 years’ experience in academic and industry research settings, she brings a unique perspective to ethics oversight and research infrastructure development. Erika holds a Master of Professional Education from Western and a BSc in Genetics and Cell Biology from UBC. Nationally, she contributes through initiatives such as CanReview to efforts that streamline ethics review for multi-site health research and promote harmonized, transparent frameworks across institutions and disciplines. She is passionate about enhancing research infrastructure to support ethical conduct, enable meaningful cross-disciplinary collaboration, and foster a culture of integrity and excellence across the broader research ecosystem.