The Centre's members
The Centre is directed by Rebecca Bennett and Victoria Moore.
Rebecca Bennett
Rebecca is Professor of Bioethics and Co-Director of the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy at the University of Manchester. She has over 30 years of experience in research and teaching across a broad range of issues in bioethics, with particular expertise in reproductive ethics, genetics, screening and disability.
She is the author of the open access book The Welfare of Future Children: Reproductive Ethics and Disability Screening and has published extensively on ethical questions concerning reproduction, disability and healthcare.
Rebecca is also Programme Director for the University's fully online postgraduate programmes in Healthcare Ethics and Law (LLM, MA, PGDip and PGCert) and has led the development of short online Continuing Professional Development (CPD) courses in medical ethics and law.
Catherine Bowden
Catherine is a Research Associate currently working as part of a multidisciplinary team on the RAPID-RT project based at The Christie, exploring attitudes to sharing real-world health data in order to improve outcomes for patients receiving radiotherapy for lung cancer. She has also worked on the GP Data Trust pilot study.
Her research interests also include the legal and ethical issues surrounding pregnancy, particularly in relation to smoking and alcohol. Prior to completing her PhD researching Maternal Liability for Prenatal Harm at the University of Manchester, she worked as a solicitor in commercial law and clinical negligence. She has also taught tort law, medical law, and leadership courses at the University for the past seven years.
Iain Brassington
Iain is a philosopher by background. His research portfolio is varied, concentrating mainly on moral problems arising from medicine and the biosciences, but with occasional forays into other areas of law and regulation; the aim is to use the tools of analytic philosophy to understand and refine law.
He sits on a number of ethics committees, and is a frequent contributor to national and international media debates on bioethical issues.
Sarah Devaney
Sarah joined CSEP as a PhD student and Graduate Teaching Assistant in 2004. She teaches across the Healthcare Ethics and Law courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as well as supervising a number of PhD students on healthcare law and regulation topics.
She undertakes research on the regulation of professionals in science and medicine, the regulation of emerging biotechnologies, and health data research practices. The involvement of patients and the public is a key feature of her work.
Lucy Frith
Lucy joined CSEP in October 2021, from the University of Liverpool. She conducts research at the interface of bioethics and social science with research interests in: empirical bioethics; reproductive technologies; organisational ethics; public involvement in healthcare; and the use of evidence in practice and policy. She is principal investigator on the UKRI ESRC funded project ConnecteDNA that is exploring how people involved in donor conception both use and are impacted by the rise in online DNA testing, and the UKRI AHRC Reset Ethics Project that explored the ethical issues raised by managing non-Covid paediatric and maternity care during the Covid pandemic.
Fae Garland
Fae joined the Law Department in September 2016, after having been a Lecturer of Law at the University of Exeter where she also completed a PhD.
Fae’s research interests predominantly centre on family law, gender and socio-legal research. Most recently, Fae’s work has focused on intersex rights and law.
Simona Giordano
Simona is Professor of Bioethics. She studied philosophy in Rome and specialised in Philosophy of Psychiatry. She is currently the Director of the Bioethics and Medical Jurisprudence PhD Programme. Her research explores ethical and legal questions arising in healthcare, with particular interests in transgender healthcare, eating disorders, autonomy, and clinical decision-making. She currently serves on the Ethics Committee and on the Board of Directors of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Her recent work has focused on the relationship between evidence, values, and policy in healthcare decision-making.
Nicola Glover-Thomas
Nicola is a Professor of Medical Law and is the current Director of Research in the Law School. Her research interests focus around three main themes: mental health law analysed through a socio-legal perspective; law and pharmaceuticals; and pharmacogenomics and the socio-legal implications of this.
Søren Holm
Søren is a medical doctor and philosopher and has been Professor of Bioethics in CSEP since 2009. He also holds a permanent 20% Chair in Medical Ethics at the Center for Medical Ethics, University of Oslo. He has worked in bioethics, philosophy of medicine, and scientific integrity since the early 1990s, publishing more than 250 papers in peer-reviewed journals on a very wide range of issues. He has successfully supervised more than 20 PhD students.
Kirsty Keywood
Kirsty supervises a number of doctoral research projects and is particularly interested in health care decision-making by, with and for vulnerable adults.
Victoria Moore
Victoria is Co-Director of CSEP and a Lecturer in Law. She completed her PhD at the University of Manchester on the topic of regulatory responses to patients safety incidents during hospital discharges. Victoria's research interests include healthcare law and regulation, and patient safety.
Alexandra Mullock
Alex joined CSEP in 2008, initially as a PhD student. Alex teaches across a number of healthcare law courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level as well as teaching criminal law to undergraduates, and she supervises several PhD students.
Her research interests focus mainly on end-of-life law, the legitimacy of ethically contentious medical interventions and criminal matters in medicine.
Amanda Odell-West
Amanda completed the MA in Law and PhD in Law at Sheffield University before taking up a lectureship in law at Manchester University.
Previously, she was an experienced critical care nurse. Her research intersects patent law, biotechnology and health care.
Catherine Stanton
Catherine's interests and doctoral supervision focus on issues relating to the use of human genetic information, reproductive technologies and clinical negligence litigation.
In Memoriam
Margot Brazier, OBE, FRSA, FAMS, FBA, QC (Hon)
Together with John Harris (a philosopher), Mary Lobjoit (a physician) and Tony Dyson (a theologian), Margot, a lawyer, was one of the founders of CSEP in 1986. The Centre was established to ‘help make the world a better place and to establish ethics at the heart of medical practice and increasingly of science’ and this group set the tone for an interdisciplinary approach to the study of healthcare law which remains one of its defining features today.
From a background in Tort Law, which led her to become co-editor of Clerk and Lindsell on Torts and Street on Torts, her intellectual curiosity led her to her pioneering work in healthcare law. Here, her focus was often on the impact upon patients and their families, and on autonomy, responsibility and how best to recognise the humanity of those affected when things go wrong. Her textbook, Medicine, Patients and the Law, first published in 1987, has been the inspiring accompaniment to many thousands of students’ study of this area. In the later stages of her career, Margot turned her mind to her long fascination with medico-legal history, in 2023 debunking the myth that medical law is a relatively young subject in her book, Law and Healing: A History of a Stormy Marriage.
Margot’s public service was extensive, with chairing positions on the Animal Procedures Committee (1993 to 1998), the Review of Surrogacy Arrangements (1996 to 1998), the Retained Organs Commission (2001 to 2004) and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ Working Party on the Ethics of Prolonging Life in Fetuses and the Newborn (2004-2006). Through this public leadership and engagement work in highly sensitive areas, Margot not only made her mark on health policy and practice landscapes but also touched many lives through providing for a compassionate hearing of people’s experiences in healthcare.
Margot cared deeply about her students and colleagues, providing passionate and supportive teaching, supervision and mentoring throughout her career. In this way, she supported several generations of healthcare lawyers and ethicists, many of whom are now themselves leaders in the field. Her example continues to inspire the intellectual work and collegiality which remain the driving force of CSEP.
Annie Austin
Annie was an honorary member of CSEP after we were fortunate to have her as a colleague from 2016 to 2020. Annie completed her PhD in Applied Social Science in 2015 and joined the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy in 2016. Prior to joining The University of Manchester, she worked for several years doing social policy research in the public, private and third sectors. Annie had a degree in Philosophy and an MSc in Social Change. Annie’s award-winning research has been highly influential, and she was a brilliant supervisor to a number of our PhD candidates.
When her contract ended, she accepted an Honorary position with us.
Annie has been a much loved respected colleague and friend. She was clever, kind, hardworking, funny, original, and extraordinarily brave, in her research and in her life. Annie had a true love for philosophy; was always happy to take part in any activity of the centre and to support anyone who needed her help. All of us at CSEP cherish the memory of the precious time we have had together, and, in our hearts, she will continue to live as a member of our CSEP family.