Dr Nishtha Bharti

Nishtha is an Affiliate Researcher with CPM and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the ‘Clinical Ethics, Law, and Society’ group at the Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford. She is leading a study that aims to understand the complex dynamics that shape identity descriptors – such as race, ethnicity, and ancestry – in genomic medicine and their impact on mapping accessibility and equitability of care.

Nishtha’s research is situated within the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and she combines it with her previous training and teaching experience in Political Science. She engages with techno-scientific trajectories in healthcare (particularly digital, data-driven technologies and Artificial Intelligence) and their unfolding across diverse socio-political contexts and transcontinental sites. Through her collaborations she has also looked at the politicisation of specific COVID drugs to understand the peculiarities of crisis governance and to analyse how knowledge claims are legitimised.

In her broader research pursuits, Nishtha’s enquiries span the shifting socio-political logics, contested values and competing epistemic frames in healthcare reforms through emerging technologies. She completed her PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi. More information about her research can be found here.

Dr Susie Weller

Susie Weller is a CPM Research Fellow. Her current work forms part of the ‘Ethical Preparedness in Genomic Medicine’ study (Wellcome Trust, 2018-25), which combines conceptual, empirical, and theoretical work to examine the ethical and social challenges that arise for those living and working with genetic and genomic results. Susie draws on a range of conceptual tools from family and lifecourse sociology and employs qualitative longitudinal research approaches to explore, over time, interactions between individuals, those within their networks, and the wider social processes and structures shaping their experiences. She is particularly interested in: how patients and families navigate different routes through genomic medicine; the resources and support on which they draw to manage the process; how participants conceive of their data journey; and how caring relationships, identities and practices evolve over time.

Professor Anneke Lucassen

Anneke was appointed Director of the CPM in August 2021. Anneke trained in Medicine and specialised in Clinical Genetics. After a DPhil identifying genetic factors in diabetes, she set up an interdisciplinary research programme exploring the ethical, legal and social aspects of integrating advances in genetics (and other forms of big data) into healthcare and society. She is consultant in the Oxford Clinical Genetics Service.

Much more information on Anneke’s research can be found here.