Caitlin Heppner is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at the University of Ottawa, studying the intersection of epistemology and ethics, or the ethics of knowing. Caitlin’s SSHRC-funded dissertation focuses on abnormality in medicine, psychiatry, and the law, considering various ethical dimensions of the production and dissemination of knowledge in the life sciences. In particular, this work regards the acquisition of medical knowledge through statistics and the challenges posed to the life sciences by normativity.

Caitlin’s research interests include ethical advances in medicine and psychiatry, and is particularly interested in how our normative constructions of bodies, normality, and perfection are replicated in AI and social media. In terms of computer engineering and ethical design, whose idea of a normal person is being integrated into these systems?  How do systems and programming handle deviations from the norm?  How can our normative human bodies be accounted for within empirical data?  These types of questions come to the forefront of Caitlin’s work. Working in and with CRAiEDL, Caitlin hopes to integrate this knowledge set with the strong interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary team to put the ethical considerations located within philosophical theory into practice.