Dr Sheelagh McGuinness

 

Birmingham Fellow

Birmingham Law School

Photo of Dr Sheelagh McGuinness, courtesy of Wellcome Images

Contact details

Telephone +44 (0) 121 414 5126

Fax +44 (0) 121 414 3585

Email s.mcguinness@bham.ac.uk

Birmingham Law School
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

About

Dr Sheelagh McGuinness is a University Fellow based in the Centre for Health Law, Science & Policy, at Birmingham Law School. Her research interests span law and bioethics (particularly reproduction, medical migration, and disability) focusing on the interplay between law, ethics, and policy. She is a member of the Independent Ethics and Governance Council of UK Biobank and also sits on the Royal College of General Practitioners’ Medical Ethics Committee. 

[Image of Dr Sheelagh McGuinness courtesy of Wellcome Images]

Qualifications

  • BA Philosophy & Legal Science (Galway)
  • LLB (Galway)
  • MA in Health Care Ethics & Law (Manchester)
  • PhD (Manchester)

Biography

Before joining Birmingham as a University Fellow Sheelagh was a lecturer in the Centre for Professional Ethics and the School of Law at Keele University.

Postgraduate supervision

Sheelagh would be happy to supervise postgraduate research in any of her areas of interest -

The legal and ethical issues raised by:

  • reproduction;
  • abortion;
  • assisted reproductive technologies;
  • biotechnologies more generally;
  • embryos;
  • organ donation

Research

Sheelagh’s research interests are in health law, ethics and policy. She is currently working on two main research projects:

  • Disability and Legal Personhood
  • Medical Migration and Health Crimes

Other activities

Professional service

  • Member of the Independent Ethics and Governance Council of UK Biobank
  • Medical Ethics Committee of the Royal College of General Practitioners

Grant income

  • Primary Investigator (with Dr. Tom Walker as co-investigator) 2010: Awarded: £18,671 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to support a scoping study entitled ‘CHORDS - Community: Healthcare Organisation and Regulation in a Diverse Society’.
  • (with Dr. Tom Walker & Professor Stephen Wilkinson) 2010: Awarded £5000 from the Wellcome Trust to support a workshop entitled ‘Consent and Organ Donation’ (Wellcome Award WT095020MA).
  • (with Professor Michael Thomson) 2009: Awarded £1951 from the Wellcome Trust to support a workshop entitled ‘Conscientious Objection in Public Life’ (Wellcome Award WT090760MF).

Publications

Publications in peer-reviewed journals

Commentaries; review articles; book reviews; non-peer reviewed & shorter papers

Chapters in edited volumes

  • ‘The Construction of the Embryo and Implications for Law’ in Muireann Quigley, Sarah Chan, and John Harris (Eds.) Stem Cells: New frontiers in science and ethics (World Scientific Publishing, Forthcoming)
  • An Ethical Framework for Emotion-Related Computing’ in Petta, Paolo; Pelachaud, Catherine; Cowie, Roddy (Eds.) Emotion Oriented Systems: The Humaine Handbook (Springer, 2011)
  • Phil Dyer and Sheelagh McGuinness, ‘The Organ Allocation Algorithm’ in Farrell, A.M., Price, D., and Quigley, M. (Eds.) Organ Shortage: Ethics Law and Pragmatism. (Cambridge University Press, 2011)

Journal editing

  • Co-edited a special section of the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethic on ‘Consent and Organ Donation’. [Forthcoming]
  • Co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Identity in the Information Society (IDIS) on ‘Genetics, Information, and Identity’. [Volume 3, Number 3 / December 2010]

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