Siobhán O’Sullivan

Dr Siobhán O’Sullivan joined NESC as a senior policy analyst in 2025. She previously served as Executive Director of the Royal Irish Academy; Ireland’s all-island learned society for the sciences and humanities. She holds an Honorary Associate Professorship at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, where she teaches in healthcare ethics and law.

From 2011 to 2022, Dr O’Sullivan was Chief Bioethics Officer in the Department of Health, guiding Ireland’s national ethics response, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has chaired the Steering Committee for Human Rights in Biomedicine and Health (CDBIO) at the Council of Europe and been vice-chair of the European Group on Ethics in Science & New Technologies. She chairs the British Medical Journal Ethics Committee and acts as ethics advisor to the European Medicines Agency Network Data Steering Group. She has played a key role in shaping bioethical discourse nationally and internationally, contributing to policy, legislation, and education on complex issues at the intersection of science, rights, and society.

She received her Doctor of Medicine from Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm in 1998 and holds a Master in Healthcare Ethics and law and a Masters in Human Rights Law.

Email: siobhan.osullivan@nesc.ie