Our Team

Dr Jacqueline Savard
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Jacqueline is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine (VELiM) at the University of Sydney. She is originally from Canada and completed her Bachelor of Science at the University of Alberta. However, she has lived and worked in Australia for over ten years. Jacqueline's interests stem from a fascination and love of science, particularly with DNA – from what it is to what it can tell us about ourselves. However, while science can tell us some of the story, Jacqueline felt there was a divide between what we can learn about in the laboratory/clinic and how we understand and use this knowledge in the context of our everyday lives. To understand this divide, she completed her Master of Bioethics (Honours) at the University of Sydney in 2009 where her Honours thesis focused on genetic testing for ethnic ancestry. In 2016, Jacqueline completed her PhD in bioethics. Her thesis was the first empirical research in Australia to explore Australian consumers' knowledge, attitudes and experiences of direct-to-consumer personal genome testing. Her research interests include the ethics of new genetic technologies, particularly direct-to-consumer personal genome testing, whole genome/exome sequencing in the clinical and commercial domains and the use and impact of genetic information in daily life.