Research

Personal Academic Research

The majority of my work focuses on current issues in bioethics and applied ethics more generally. Within the field of bioethics I have particular interests in trust, pandemic ethics and public/global health ethics more generally. I have other research interests in philosophy of medicine and psychiatry, specifically the intersection of psychotherapy, philosophy of medicine, and AI ethics. Some of this applied work ties in with areas in philosophy of mind, and I am particularly interested in the possibility of extended emotions as derived from the extended mind literature.

My dissertation focuses on interpersonal trust in the context of widespread health emergencies. I examine the relationship between interpersonal trust, trustworthiness, and responsibility during large-scale health emergencies.

Prior to this, I wrote my MA thesis on ethical issues in crowdfunding for academic research. This effort marked one of the first long-form works exploring the ethical and equity-based issues with the small but growing number of researchers turning to crowdfunding sites to support their academic research projects. My full thesis is available here.

Other Academic Research

In addition to my individual research, I have had multiple opportunities to work with bioethics-adjacent research groups across Canada. 

Ethical dimensions of mental health care

As of March 2023 I have worked as a research trainee with the Bioethics/Education Department and Everyday Ethics Lab at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health on projects related to pain and attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccinations in transition-age youth.

Ethical pathways in COVID-19 research and development

Between 2020 and early 2023 I worked with Dr. Maxwell Smith and the Health Ethics, Law and Policy Lab at Western University on a range of projects related to ethical issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have published multiple papers in The Lancet, and BMJ Global Health. The latter is my first, first-author publication. 

As a member of this research team, I also served as a member of the World Health Organization's Access to COVID Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) Governance Subworking Group. We published a paper summarizing our findings in The Lancet.

Crowdfunding narratives and vaccine valuation

In 2021 I had the opportunity to work with academics at Simon Fraser University and the University of Guelph on a project related to my previous experience working on philosophical issues related to crowdfunding. Our work was published in Vaccine in 2022.

Global health ethics work

During my MA, I had the chance to work as a research assistant at the Institute on Ethics and Policy for Innovation at McMaster University. There, I assisted in the preparation of multiple guidance documents on global health ethics.