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Background and interests

Professor Angela Ballantyne is a Professor of Bioethics at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, Pōneke (University of Otago, Wellington), New Zealand, and an internationally recognised scholar in bioethics, research ethics, and health data governance. Her research examines how health systems can responsibly harness data, AI, and medical research while promoting equity, fairness and public trust.

Angela has led influential work on learning health systems, public-private data partnerships, precision medicine governance, and public attitudes towards health data use, including collaborative projects in Singapore and internationally

Her work has shaped national and international policy on benefit sharing and inclusion of underrepresented populations in research and responsible data innovation. She has advised governments, the World Medical Association, and international organisations on the ethical governance of health data, AI, organ donation and clinical ethics.

She is a member of New Zealand's National AI and Algorithm Expert Advisory Group, and the Ethics Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology, as well as the Lancet Commission on Precision Health. She has previously served as President of the International Association of Bioethics, a member of the New Zealand Health and Disability Ethics Committees, the national COVID-19 Immunisation Implementation Advisory Group (IIAG); a founding member of Birth Trauma Aotearoa; and has worked for the Human Genetics unit at the World Health Organization.

Research interests

Angela's research spans:

  • Research ethics
  • Feminist bioethics
  • Reproductive ethics
  • Global health

She has published on:

  • Exploitation
  • Vulnerability
  • Unconscious bias
  • Trust
  • Informed consent
  • The governance of emerging health technologies

Much of her work examines how power imbalances and structural inequities influence participation in research, access to healthcare, and the distribution of the benefits of scientific innovation.

Across these diverse areas, her work aims to develop ethical frameworks that are both philosophically rigorous and responsive to the practical challenges faced by patients, clinicians, researchers, and policymakers.

Current research

Her current research brings together empirical and normative approaches to address ethical challenges in precision health, data sharing, public interest, consent, trust, fairness, and equitable access to innovation.

Publications

Hatherley, J., Søgaard, A., Ballantyne, A., & Pauwels, R. (2026). Federation opacity makes medical machine learning's failures harder to detect and correct. American Journal of Bioethics, 26(11), W1-W3. doi: 10.1080/15265161.2026.2741283 Journal - Research Other

Towns, C., Ballantyne, A., Konstantinova, P., Drew, C., & Rosser, A. (2026). Planning advanced therapy trials for Huntington's Disease: Ethical considerations. Molecular Therapy. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1016/j.ymthe.2026.09.035 Journal - Research Article

Davies, D., Ballantyne, A. J., & Nie, J.-B. (2026). Panoptic pain and women's disciplinary governance in the persistent pain clinic. International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics. Advance online publication. Journal - Research Article

Ballantyne, A., Schaefer, G. O., Newson, A. J., Xafis, V., Toh, H. J., Ong, S., … Tai, E. S. (2026). Trustworthy governance of genomic and health-related data: Lessons from Singapore. Asian Bioethics Review. doi: 10.1007/s41649-025-00397-7 Journal - Research Article

Lim, J. E., Siddiqui, F. J., Ballantyne, A., Dunn, M., Prince, S., Wilkinson, D., … Schaefer, G. O. (2026). Ethical, legal, and social issues of AI use in emergency healthcare: A scoping review. BMC Medical Informatics & Decision Making. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1186/s12911-026-03355-x Journal - Research Other

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