Professor Bartha Maria Knoppers, Distinguished James McGill Professor Emerita holds a PhD in comparative medical law from the Sorbonne University, France. She has made significant contributions to international bioethics policymaking and is the Founding Director of the Centre of Genomics and Policy at McGill University since 2009. She held the Canada Research Chair in Law and Medicine from 2001-2024.

Since her presidency of the International Ethics Committee of the Human Genome Organization (1996 – 2004) and her work with the ASHG Social Issues Committee in the 1990s as well as in the drafting of UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights (1993-1997), she co-led the ethics work of the international HapMap and the 1000 Genomes projects (2000-06). She also served as a member of the Scientific Steering Committee (Ethics) of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) (2009-2017) and in 2024, became Chair of  the Board of Governors of the Pan-Canadian Genome Library. She created the international P3G (Public Population Project in Genomics & Society) and CARTaGENE, Quebec’s population biobank in 2007 (44,000 participants). In 2013, she became co-Chair of the Regulatory and Ethics Working Group of  the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) and drafted its Framework for Responsible  Sharing of Genome and Health-Related Data Sharing becoming a member of its Board in 2023. She also served as a Director on the Canadian Council of Academics, as a member of the Bioethics Advisory Committee of Canadian Blood Services and in 2017 gave the prestigious  Galton Lecture in the UK. Additionally, she is an Officer of the Order of Canada and of Quebec while also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, the Hastings Center, and of the AAAS. In 2024, she became a Board Director of Quebec’s Research Fund.

She holds five honorary doctorates and  in 2019, was awarded the Henry G. Friesen International Prize in Health Research while a member of the International Commission on the Clinical Use of Human Germline Genome Editing. This was followed by receipt of  the 2020 Till and McColloch prize for international policy (stem cell research) and in 2023, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Canadian Bioethics Society.