Louise Bélanger-Hardy's current research interests include human rights of older persons, the rights of caregivers and patients in health care settings, liability issues and private home care, consent in the medical and research settings and professional responsibility. For over ten years, she held cross-appointments to administrative tribunals dealing with health professions and health services in Ontario.

Emmanuelle Bernheim holds the Canada Research Chair in Mental Health and Access to Justice. Her research focuses on the role of law and justice in the production and reproduction of inequalities. Over the past five years, she has developed a research program around the issue of access to justice and its implementation for marginalized citizens under three main axes: mental health, youth protection and self-representation in court.

Jennifer A. Chandler studies the legal and ethical aspects of biomedical science and technology, with a focus on (1) the intersection of the brain sciences, law and ethics, and (2) legal policy related to organ donation and transplantation. She holds the University of Ottawa’s Bertram Loeb Research Chair. She leads the “Neuroethics Law and Society” Research Pillar for the Brain Mind Research Institute and sits on its Scientific Advisory Council. In her research, she collaborates with a diverse international group of academics and clinicians and she led the recent publication of the first international comparative study of the laws of “psychosurgery” with the contributions of leading functional neurosurgeons from Europe, Asia and the Americas. She coordinates a new tri-national project – Hybrid Minds – bringing together researchers from Switzerland, Germany and Canada to examine the implications of embedding artificial intelligence within neuroprosthetics. For the past several years, she has run a discussion group called Mind-Brain-Law which went online during the pandemic and includes nearly 100 members from North and South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. She is active in Canadian neuroscience research funding policy, and currently sits as a member of the Advisory Board for the Institute for Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction. Jennifer Chandler also regularly contributes to Canadian governmental policy on contentious matters of biomedicine. She is a member of the Government’s independent panel advising on safeguards related to medical assistance in dying in the context of mental illness, and was a member of the 2018 government-commissioned National Expert Panel on Medical Assistance in Dying. She is currently co-chairing the law and ethics working group of a CBS-sponsored clinical guideline development process looking at the definition of brain death and criteria for the determination of brain death, and she also chairs the Ethics Committee of the Canadian Society for Transplantation.

Jennifer M. Kilty is a Full Professor in the Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa. A critical prison studies scholar, her research examines criminalization, punishment, and incarceration—often at the nexus of health and mental health. Author of over 75 articles and book chapters, she has published works on conditions of confinement, carceral segregation practices, the criminalization of HIV nondisclosure, prison education and pedagogy, and the mental health experiences of criminalized people. Her edited and authored books include: Demarginalizing Voices: Commitment, Emotion and Action in Qualitative Research (2014, UBC Press), Within the Confines: Women and the Law in Canada (2014, Women’s Press), Containing Madness: Gender and ‘Psy’ in Institutional Contexts (2018, Palgrave), and The Enigma of a Violent Woman: A Critical Examination of the Case of Karla Homolka (2016, Routledge). She is currently co-investigator on a 7 year SSHRC partnership grant entitled Prison Transparency Project which is a comparative study of prison transparency in seven research sites across Canada, Argentina, and Spain. The project aims to examine both formal mechanisms and informal practices that promote the movement of information in and out of carceral sites, both for accountability purposes and to defend the rights and freedoms of incarcerated persons.

Sophie Nunnelley’s scholarship especially takes up issues of health and mental health law, legal capacity and decision-making, human rights, and the regulation of health artificial intelligence. As a 2023-2024 AMS Fellow in Compassion and Artificial Intelligence, she is investigating the implications of mental health AI for rights such as informed consent and non-discrimination. She is also part of a CIHR-funded research project, Machine MD: How Should we Regulate AI in Healthcare, conducting research and convening cross-disciplinary case studies on specific health-AI technologies and their regulatory requirements. Sophie received her SJD from the University of Toronto where her work was supported by numerous awards, including a Vanier Canada Scholarship, a CIHR Fellowship in Health Law, Ethics and Policy, and a Lupina Fellowship in Comparative Health & Society. She received her LL.M. from Yale University as a Fulbright Scholar. Nunnelley also practiced law with the Constitutional Law Branch of the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General under the McGuinty government, where she argued cases before every level of court in Ontario, and the Supreme Court of Canada. She was also counsel for a major public inquiry (the “Gomery Inquiry”), a litigator at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, and a law clerk for the Hon. Mr. Justice Gonthier at the Supreme Court of Canada.

Tracy Vaillancourt holds the Canada Research Chair in School-Based Mental Health and Violence Prevention. Her research examines the links between bullying and mental health, with a particular focus on social neuroscience.

Dr. Monnica T. Williams is a board-certified licensed clinical psychologist and Associate Professor in the School of Psychology, where she is the Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Disparities. She is also the Clinical Director of the Behavioral Wellness Clinic in Connecticut, where she provides supervision and training to clinicians for empirically-supported treatments. Dr. Williams’ research focuses on minority mental health, culture, and psychopathology. Current projects include the assessment of race-based trauma, unacceptable thoughts in OCD, improving cultural competence in mental health care services, and interventions to reduce racism. This includes her work as a PI in a multisite study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD. She also gives diversity trainings nationally for clinical psychology programs, scientific conferences, and community organizations.