At the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, Sundeep Virdi aims to explore how law might evolve in meaningful ways to support desirable outcomes from innovation. This interest arose while working in the municipal and nonprofit sectors, immersed in reducing the climate impacts from energy, waste management, and transportation. She encountered tensions between the role of culture change and technological innovations in the formulation of policy development. She questions how decision-makers may critically assess the ethical implications of technology. Specifically, what role emerging technologies play in maintaining, disrupting, dismantling or reinforcing, systems of power. 

Sundeep completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Environmental Studies at York University. She received a SSHRC scholarship for her Master’s thesis: “Bioart as a Possibility for Reconciling the Division between Nature and Art in Aesthetic Discourse,” which was nominated for the university-wide Thesis Award and selected for the FES Outstanding Paper Series.