Scientific committee

Olaf Blanke is director of the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne; www.lnco.epfl.ch) and neurologist consultant at the Department of Neurology (University Hospital of Geneva).

He pioneered the neuroscientific study of human self-consciousness and subjectivity by using a broad range of methods such as the neuropsychology and electrophysiology of self-consciousness in neurological disease as well as brain imaging in healthy subjects.

His main interest at present is the development of a data-driven neuroscientific theory of self-consciousness and subjectivity. Another main line of research concerns balance and body perception, and their application to engineering-based technologies such as virtual reality, robotics, and neuro-rehabilitation.

Dr Costa-Font’s works at LSE as an Associate Professor (Reader) of Political Economy in the Department of Social Policy and the European Institute. Joan has held various visiting and research posts at Harvard University, Boston College, Oxford University and the University of Munich among other universities. His main research and teaching is broadly on issues related to (i) the economics of social policy and (ii) the political economy (including public choice and social economic analysis of) social programs and institutions. Outside LSE he is affiliated to CESIfo and the Health Econometrics and Data group.

Ua Gudnadottir holds a Bachelor's degree in Medicine, a Bachelor's degree in Law and an interdisciplinary Master's degree in Living Law from the University of Geneva. His current research focuses on medically assisted procreation.

Nouzha Guessous is a member of the advisory commission in charge of the reform of the Moudawana in Morocco, is a professor, medical biologist, former president of the International Bioethics Committee (UNESCO), and member of the Comité d’éthique de la recherche biomédicale of Casablanca and the Moroccan Association of Bioethics. Activist for the Human Rights and the Women’s rights, fundator of the Organisation Marocaine des Droits de l’Homme (Marrocan Organisation for the Human Rights), she is also an adviser for NGOs working in the field of defense of women’s rights.

Torsten H. Voigt is a professor of sociology and chair of technology and
diversity at RWTH Aachen University, Germany. He is also a member of the
scientific committee on science studies at the Germany Ministry of
Education and Research.

Samia Hurst is a physician bioethicist, ethics consultant for the Clinical Ethics Council at the Geneva University Hospitals and director of the Clinical Ethics Unit of the Lausanne University Hospitals, and chair of the Institute for Ethics, History, and the Humanities at Geneva University’s medical school in Switzerland. She is a member of the Senate at the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences, of the Ethical Legal Social Issues advisory group du Swiss Personalised Health Network, and of the Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics. Her research focuses on fairness in clinical practice and the protection of vulnerable persons.

BARTHA MARIA KNOPPERS, PhD, is Director of the Centre of Genomics and Policy, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Human Genetics, McGill University, Canada Research Chair in Law and Medicine 2001- and the holder of Chaire d’excellence Pierre Fermat (France) (2006-2008), she was named Distinguished Visiting Scientist (Netherlands Genomics Initiative) (2009-2011).

Formerly, Professor at the Faculté de droit, Université de Montréal (1985-2009) and Senior Researcher at the Centre de recherche en droit public (C.R.D.P.) (1996-2009). Graduate of McMaster University (B.A.), University of Alberta (M.A.), McGill University (LL.B., B.C.L.), Cambridge University, U.K., (D.L.S.), Sorbonne Paris I) (Phd.) she was admitted to the Bar of Québec in 1985.

Professor Knoppers was the former, Chair of the International Ethics committee of the Human Genome Organization (HUGO), (1996-2004), and member of the International Bioethics Committee of the United Nations, Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) which drafted the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights (1993-1997).

Co-Founder of the International Institute of Research in Ethics and Biomedicine (IIREB) (2000 – 2009), she founded the Population Project in Genomics (P3G) and CARTaGENE in 2003. From 2000-2006 she served on the Board of Genome Canada, became Chair of the Ethics Working Party of the International Stem Cell Forum, Co-Chair of the Sampling/ELSI Committee of the 1000 Genomes Project (2008-) and a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) (2009-).

Professor Knoppers received a Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa from the University of Waterloo (2001), a Doctor of Medicine Honoris Causa from Université de Paris V (René Descartes) (2002), a Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa from McMaster University, Ontario (2007) and a Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa from the University of Alberta in 2008. In 2002, she was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, selected as one of the 50 nation builders in Canada by the Globe and Mail, and named Officer of the Order of Canada. In that same year, she was elected Fellow of The Hastings Center (Bioethics), New York, member of the International Ethics Committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency and, in April 2005, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (CAHS). She was elected Governor of the Quebec Bar in 2006 and in 2007 was elected Advocatus Emeritus. In 2011, she received the ACFAS Prix Jacques Rousseau for interdisciplinarity.

Florencia Luna, M.A, Ph D.  Principal  Researcher at  CONICET (National Scientific and Technological Research Council), Argentina.  Director of the Program of bioethics at FLACSO (Latin American University of Social Sciences). President of the International Association of Bioethics (IAB) (2003-2005).  Expert for the World Health Organization (WHO) and member of the Scientific and Advisory Committee (STAC) of the Department of Tropical Diseases Research (TDR) from WHO (2011-2014).  She has also published articles in national and international journals. Author of several books, including Bioethics and Vulnerability: A Latin American View (2006).

Dr. Johann A R Roduit is a founding partner of Conexkt, an international innovation agency, and an affiliate researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine at the University of Zurich. He completed his doctoral thesis on the ethics of human enhancement. His research interests include human & moral enhancement, bioethics, transhumanism, virtue ethics, the ethics of big data, and the ethics of artificial intelligence.

Director of Belgium College and of the College of the Alumni of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium.

Marie-Josée Simoen until 2008 was also the General Secretary of the Fund for Scientific Research - FNRS Belgium (FRS-FNRS) and its associated Funds (1988 -2008), Interuniversity Institute for Nuclear Sciences (IISN)-Fund of Medical Scientific Research (FRSM)-Basic Research Fund Collective initiative of researchers (FRFC)-Fund for Research Training in Industry and Agriculture (FRIA)