Ciara Staunton

Dr Ciara Staunton is a legal academic and consultant specializing in the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of health data, genomics, and emerging technologies. She leads Ciara Staunton Consulting and holds honorary research appointments at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa).

Her work focuses on the governance of genomic research, biobanking, stem cell research, and the use of health data in research, with the aim of developing ethical and legal frameworks that enable responsible, equitable, and participant-centered innovation. She is currently co-lead of the ELSI WP of Genome of Ireland and a member of the FACILITATE consortium.

Ciara is a member of numerous international advisory boards providing ethical and legal oversight on projects spanning data science, artificial intelligence, genomics, and biobanking. She was also previously a member of the National Irish COVID-19 Biobank – Research Ethics Committee (NICB-REC).

She has held consultancies with leading public health organizations, including the WHO, the Global Fund, Africa CDC, the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), and the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, amongst others, contributing to policy and governance frameworks at national, regional, and global levels. She was the lead consultant for the WHO's work on WHO principles for human genome access, use, and sharing. 

Her research has been supported by the Wellcome Trust, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), HRB, and the Irish Research Council, and has informed policy development in Ireland, Bahrain, and across Africa. Ciara has published widely on the ethical and legal issues surrounding emerging health technologies and has played a key role in the development of ethics and governance frameworks for genomic research and biobanking initiatives.

From 2010–2013, Ciara was a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Medical Ethics and Law, Stellenbosch University.

She obtained her PhD from NUI Galway for her thesis The Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Ireland.

Before embarking on her academic career, she worked as a Legal Researcher at the Law Reform Commission of Ireland.