Judy Illes, Professor of Neurology, Canada Research Chair in Neuroethics and Director of Neuroethics Canada at UBC, has been awarded the 2018 Patricia Price Browne Prize in Biomedical Ethics.
The award recognizes the importance of ethics in confronting the critical biomedical issues of the day.
Dr. Judy Illes
An internationally recognized author, lecturer and mentor, Dr. Illes’ research focuses on a wide range of ethical, social, legal and policy challenges at the intersection of brain sciences and biomedical ethics. Her work has provided ground-breaking contributions to neuroethical thinking for neuroscience discovery and clinical translation – specifically in the areas of neurodevelopment, neurodegeneration, brain and spinal cord injury, and more broadly to entrepreneurship in biomedicine and the commercialization of healthcare.
One of her newest projects, funded by the NIH BRAIN Initiative, focuses on informed decision-making and choice surrounding the testing and use of new forms of brain technologies to treat children whose epilepsy is resistant to traditional drug therapy.
“I am following in the giant footsteps of some of America’s finest ethicists who precede me in receiving this extraordinary recognition,” says Dr. Illes. “I am deeply humbled and grateful.”
Dr. Illes was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2017. In addition to her appointment in the Department of Medicine, she is associated faculty in the School of Population and Public Health and the School of Journalism at UBC, and in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is also a Life Member of Clare Hall at Cambridge University, the Vice Chair of the Standing Committee on Ethics of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and Vice Chair of the CIHR’s Internal Advisory Board of the Institute on Neuroscience, Mental Health and Addiction.
She was elected to the Royal Society (Life Sciences) in 2012, to the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2011, and to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Division of Neuroscience) in 2013. She is immediate past President of the International Neuroethics Society founded in 2006, and an ongoing member of the Governing Board.
An active member and advisor to multidisciplinary neuroscience and ethics research networks around the world, Dr. Illes will be honoured with the award during a reception at the University of Oklahoma in early 2019.