Professor Ilina Singh

Professor Ilina Singh is Professor of Neuroscience & Society in the Department of Psychiatry at Oxford, where she has led the Neuroscience, Ethics and Society (NEUROSEC) Team since 2015. The Team’s interdisciplinary research focuses on the social and ethical dimensions of innovations in the neuro- and psy-sciences for children and young people.

As a developmental psychologist who turned to bioethics, Professor Singh developed an early interest and expertise in empirical bioethics. Now, through the Design Bioethics Lab, NEUROSEC is pioneering the development of technology-forward co-design methodologies in empirical bioethics, using—and conducting research on—novel digital and AI tools. The majority of the Team’s work is conducted with the NeurOx Young People’s Advisory Group.

Professor Singh has longstanding engagements with UK and global psychiatry through projects such as www.neurogene.org and a Wellcome Investigator Award for BeGOOD: the ethics of early intervention in child psychiatry. A more recent interest is the mutually constitutive health of humans and nature, and the ethical force of ‘ecological collective flourishing.’

She is increasingly involved in research-to-policy activities, most recently as a topic group co-chair and steering committee member of the UK Government-commissioned Independent Prevalence Review, and as a steering committee member for the UK Pathways clinical trial.

At UOI, Professor Singh hopes to facilitate interdisciplinary research collaborations within and beyond Oxford, contribute to the development of public- and policy-facing programmes, support UOI activities, and invigorate her ethical and bioethical thinking through new projects.