About BABEL

We are absolutely thrilled that the Wellcome Trust has chosen to support this important project. Best interests decisions are taken daily for thousands of patients and we hope, through our five years of work, to help support and inform everyone involved, from patients to carers to professionals

• Professor Richard Huxtable (BABEL director, Workstream leader)
  Richard trained in law, and directs the Centre for Ethics in Medicine in Bristol Medical School. He has particular interests in end-of-life decisions, treatment withdrawal, surgery, and clinical ethics support. His prior work on ‘best interests’ decisions includes the book Law, Ethics and Compromise at the Limits of Life: To Treat or Not to Treat? (2012, Routledge). He serves on a range of journals and committees, including the ethics committees of the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners. Richard leads the teaching in ethics and law for medical students in Bristol.
• Professor Judy Laing (BABEL Co-Deputy Director, Workstream leader)
  Judy is based at the Centre for Health, Law, and Society in Bristol Law School and has expertise in mental health/capacity law, and human rights. She has experience of teaching health law, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, at several universities in the UK. She currently co-directs the Centre for Health, Law, and Society, which is based in the Law School. Judy has written extensively on aspects of mental health/capacity law, and her publications include co-editing one of the leading medical law texts, Principles of Medical Law (Oxford University Press, 2018), currently in its fourth edition. Judy is also a member of the Editorial Board of two leading medico-legal journals – the Medical Law Review and International Journal of Law & Psychiatry.
• Professor Jonathan Ives (BABEL Co-Deputy Director, Workstream leader)
  Jonathan is an interdisciplinary bioethics researcher, trained in Philosophy and with experience of a wide range of social science research methods. He is deputy director of the Centre for Ethics in Medicine and leads workstream 3 of BABEL. He has a particular interest in bioethics research methodology, and works on issues around parenting and reproduction, clinical and research ethics. His work includes the co-edited book Empirical Bioethics: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives (2016, Cambridge University Press).
• Professor Sheelagh McGuinness (Workstream co-leader)
  Sheelagh is a Reader in Law at the Centre for Health, Law, and Society at University of Bristol Law School. She has expertise in health law and reproduction and teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate students across a range of health law related subjects. Sheelagh’s primary research interests are in the regulation of reproduction.
• Dr Giles Birchley (Workstream researcher)
  Giles has worked as a researcher at the University of Bristol’s Centre for Ethics in Medicine since 2015 and works on BABEL workstream 3. Giles is a nurse and has extensive clinical experience in children's intensive care. Ethical dilemmas surrounding children’s medical treatment are a key research interest, as well as how we do and should make decisions for others more generally.
• Dr Aoife Finnerty (Workstream researcher)
  Aoife is a Senior Research Associate in Healthcare Law at the Centre for Health, Law, and Society at University of Bristol Law School and works on BABEL workstream 2. Prior to joining the BABEL Project, Aoife worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the JCOERE Project based at University College Cork. She holds a Master of Arts in Medical Ethics and Law from King’s College London and a PhD from the University of Limerick. Her doctoral research focused on advance decision-making in pregnancy in Ireland, England and Wales and New York State.
• Dr Emanuele Valenti (Workstream researcher)
  Emanuele is a Senior Research Associate in Healthcare Ethics at the Centre for Ethics in Medicine, in Bristol Medical School. He has a background in philosophy and has expertise in qualitative research, and his primary role in BABEL is on workstream 1. His research interests are broadly focused on mental health and coercion, with a particular interest in ethical issues arising in mental healthcare and the role of best interests in decision making processes for people with mental disabilities.
• Rebecca Stickler (Workstream researcher)
  Rebecca is a is a Senior Senior Associate Teacher at the Centre for Health, Law, and Society at University of Bristol Law School and works on BABEL workstream 2. After completing her law degree at the University of Oxford, Rebecca practised as a barrister in England and Wales between 2007 and 2018 specialising in Mental Capacity and Public Law. She has extensive experience of working with the Court of Protection and was repeatedly ranked as a leading barrister for Court of Protection and Public Law in legal directories. Between 2019 and 2022, Rebecca worked as a Research Fellow with the 3-year AHRC-funded project, Judging Values and Participation in Mental Capacity Law in the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research at Birkbeck College, University of London.

• Dr Suzanne Doyle Guilloud
  Suzanne worked on the BABEL project from Autumn 2018 until Summer 2021 as a Senior Research Associate in Healthcare Law on the initial, mapping stage of the project, for BABEL Workstream 2. Suzanne took up a post as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy at the NUI Galway School of Law in August 2021.
• Corinna Chandler
  Corinna worked as the Research Administrator for the BABEL team from October 2018 until April 2023. She is now based in the Faculty of Science at the University, as a Project Coordinator.