Effy Vayena

Effy Vayena is a Professor of Bioethics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ) and renowned expert at the intersection of medicine, data, and ethics. Her work focuses on important societal issues of data and technology as they relate to scientific progress and how it is or should be applied to public and personal health.

Vayena completed her education as a social historian with a PhD in Medical History from the University of Minnesota. A keen interest in health policy has led her to work with the World Health Organization. Upon her return to academia, Vayena was awarded a professorship by the Swiss National Science Foundation. She founded the Health Ethics and Policy Lab to tackle pressing questions that arise through technological advances such as genomic technologies and big data analytics in healthcare and research.

She received her habilitation from the University of Zurich in the field of bioethics and policy and has been appointed a Visiting Professor at the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, where she was previously a Fellow. She is a member of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences and chairs the Ethical, Legal and Societal Implications advisory group of the Swiss Personalized Health Network, a national infrastructure and research program aiming to advance personalized health in Switzerland.

Vayena is a leading expert in the dynamic and diverse field of health data and ethics, successfully leveraging her academic work and international network to promote a fruitful debate about the ethics of health in the digital age. She has previously worked with the Wellcome Trust, OECD, Commonwealth Fund, Chatham House, and academic institutions and governments around the world.