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Courtney Hempton (MBioethics, BBSc(Hons)) is a bioethicist and interdisciplinary researcher. She has disciplinary training in psychology and bioethics, and research interests in health law, policy, and practice, particularly the regulation of dying and death, ageing, and mental health.

Currently, Courtney is a PhD Candidate with the Monash Bioethics Centre at Monash University. Her doctoral research is on the biopolitics of voluntary assisted dying, with focus on the emergence of law, policies, and practices regarding voluntary assisted dying in the Australian state of Victoria. 

Courtney is also a Visiting Academic with the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University, and an Affiliate Member of the Centre for Health, Law and Society at La Trobe University. She teaches ethics and health law into the medicine and surgery program at Monash University, and also coordinates Emerging Researchers in Ageing, a higher education initiative that provides support to graduate students and early career researchers undertaking research across the field of ageing in Australia.

Previously, Courtney was a Visiting Scholar with both the Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics at Yale University and The Hastings Center, and coordinated the ‘Ethics at End of Life’ seminar series as part of the Sherwin B. Nuland Summer Institute in Bioethics for the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics.

Courtney completed undergraduate and honours degrees in behavioural science, and has previously been engaged as a researcher across the health sector, conducting empirical studies and publishing on aspects of dementia care, elder abuse, palliative care, and psycho-oncology.

Courtney serves on the Monash Health Clinical Ethics Committee, and both the Committee and the Student and Early Career Researcher Stream Committee of the Australasian Association of Bioethics and Health Law. She was previously a member of both the Monash Health Voluntary Assisted Dying Working Group and Voluntary Assisted Dying Steering Committee.

In collaboration with Chris Mayes, Courtney also co-hosts Undisciplinary, a podcast that crosses the boundaries of history, ethics, and the politics of health.