Colin Gavaghan

Colin Gavaghan is a professor at the School of Law, University of Bristol. He has published widely on end-of-life issues and was an expert witness in Seales v Attorney General, the leading New Zealand case on assisted dying.

Genetic Supermarket (Routledge 2007), which examined legal and ethical question about genetic testing of embryos.

In 2009, I moved to New Zealand, to become the first holder of the New Zealand Law Foundation Chair in Law and Emerging Technologies. Highlights of my time there included leadership of a 4-year multidisciplinary project examining legal, social and ethical issues raised by the use of artificial intelligence in government and in work and employment. This resulted in the publication of two major reports and a book, A Citizen’s Guide to Artificial Intelligence (MIT Press 2020).

During my time in New Zealand, I served as a member and deputy chair of the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology, a regulatory committee that advises to the Minister of Health and formulates policy around reproductive technologies. In 2020 I was invited to join the newly established Digital Council, an independent advisory group to the Government on New Zealand’s digital future. In 2021, I was appointed as the first Chair of the New Zealand Police Expert Panel on Emergent Technologies. I have advised the New Zealand Government at the D5 Ministerial Summit (2018), acted as an expert witness in the High Court case of Seales v Attorney General (2015), and advised several members of parliament on draft legislation.

In 2023, after 13 happy years in Dunedin, I took up position as Professor of Digital Futures at Bristol.