Rachel Thompson

Rachel is a researcher at the CELS-Oxford research group, where she works as part of a new research-led arm of the UK Biobank Ethics Advisory Committee. As part of this role, Rachel draws on both empirical and conceptual approaches to explore the ethical, social, and governance challenges associated with population biobanking.

Rachel has an interdisciplinary background that includes bioethics, medical humanities and medical sciences and this is reflected in her approach to complex system problems. She recently completed her PhD in the ethics and governance of global biobank and health data research. This work interrogated challenges for existing ethics, governance and regulatory frameworks raised by international biobanking. The thesis explored a use-case of proposed research access to tissue-derived and biographic data originally collected from multi-nation cohorts for non-research purposes.

Before joining CELS, Rachel worked in information governance, ethics, and public involvement research across the Swansea University Population Data Science Research Centres including SAIL Databank and ADR Wales.

Rachel is co-chair of the UK Postgraduate Bioethics Network and an associate member of the Institute of Medical Ethics board of trustees. She sits on NHS Wales’ Digital Service for Patients and Public (DSPP) ethics and information governance assurance group (EIGAG).

Research interests: population biobanking, equity and justice in global health research; pluralism, harmonisation in global research ethics, ethics of public involvement.