Laura Shanner

Laura Shanner, PhD, is an Associate Adjunct Professor of Health Ethics at the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre. Laura's primary interests include ethical issues in reproduction and genetics, public health ethics, gender issues in health, and ethical assessment of health policy and law. Currently a board member of the Alberta Public Health Association, a member of the Alberta Provincial Advisory Committee on Tobacco, and a member of the Stem Cell Advisory Committee for the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, she has also served as an expert consultant to multiple Health Canada policy development committees and the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee. Laura is a former co-chair of the International Network for Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, a former board member of Friends of Medicare (Alberta), and has worked in the U.K., Australia and the U.S. as well as Canada. Before coming to Alberta, Laura held the I'Anson Assistant Professorship in Interdisciplinary Studies (Bioethics) at the University of Toronto, and has taught bioethics at the Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University. She earned her PhD in Philosophy-Bioethics from Georgetown University and the Kennedy Institute for Ethics (1994), following undergraduate training in electron microscopy and pre-clinical health sciences at Knox College (Illinois., 1986). Her publications have spanned books and journals in philosophy, women's studies, law, comparative theology, and experimental sciences.

 

Selected Publications

Mumtaz, Z., Salway, S., Shanner, L., Bhatti, A., & Laing, L. (2011). Maternal deaths in Pakistan: intersection of gender, caste, and social exclusion. BMC International Health and Human Rights 2011, 11(Suppl 2):S4.

 

 

Laura Shanner