Research Interests

Jeff’s research interests include bioethics (including research ethics, clinical ethics, and organizational ethics) as well as health equity, public health ethics, and global health ethics. Other areas of interest include public policy, climate change, and virtue ethics. Jeff has conducted research on a wide range of health-and ethics-related issues, including global solidarity, standards of care, equitable access to medicines, novel healthcare technologies, and research involving marginalized populations.

Jeff seeks to make much of his ethics-related research accessible to non-academic audiences by writing pieces for various local newspapers:

“How to defeat cervical cancer” April 4, 2023

“Caring about equity for the right reasons” February 17, 2022

“When we’ve realized we’ve become instruments of evil” June 18, 2021

Publications

D’Souza J, Nderitu D, “Ethical Considerations for the Modification of Routine Human Papillomavirus Immunisation Schedules” in The Lancet Oncology (2022)

D’Souza J, Kamaara E, Nderitu D, “All in this Together: The Global Duty to Contribute Towards Combating the Covid-19 Pandemic” (2022) in The Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (2022)

D’Souza J, Nderitu D, “Ethical Considerations for Introducing RTS,S/AS01 in Countries with Moderate to High Plasmodium Falciparum Malaria Transmission” in The Lancet Global Health (2021)

Watts D, D’Souza J, Azvendo M, Kapczinski F, Chaimowitz G, “Stigmatized Individuals: A Case for Precision Ethics” in Trends in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (2021)

Other Affiliations

Jeff serves as a Board Member for the Canadian Association of Practicing Healthcare Ethicists – Association canadienne des éthiciens en soins de santé (CAPHE-ACESS), the Canadian Association of Research Ethics Boards – L’Association canadienne des comites d'éthique de la recherche (CAREB-ACCER), and the Ethics Review Board at Public Health Ontario. Jeff also serves as an Ethics Subject Matter Expert for the African Vaccine Regulatory Forum at the World Health Organization.

• Reviewer, Science and Engineering Ethics
• Reviewer, Vaccine
• Reviewer, Wellcome Open Research
• Reviewer, Journal of Value Theory
• Member, Research Data Alliance

Current Research Projects

Jeff is currently leading two research projects. His first project is a book chapter entitled “Have We Been Miscalculating the Potential Benefits and Risks of Research All Along?: A Closer Look at the Interconnectedness of Research Ethics, Climate Change, and Global Health” and is expected to be published in The Handbook of Environmental Bioethics, Oxford University Press in 2024. His second project is a manuscript tentatively entitled “Miscalculating the Risks of Clinical Research and the Effects on Climate Change and Human Health”. Both of these projects warn of the increasing role that the “Research Industrial Complex” plays in our society, and calls for broadening the way in which research ethics committees calculate the potential benefits and risks of research. These projects seek to ground a new research ethics requirement that would mandate researchers to (i) calculate and disclose the carbon footprint associated with their research, and (ii) develop a mitigation plan to ensure that their study achieves net-zero carbon emissions.

Education & Training History

Jeff holds a PhD in Philosophy from McMaster University, a Master of Arts in Philosophy from Toronto Metropolitan University, and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Political Science and Philosophy from the University of St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto.

Jeff currently works as an Ethics Fellow at Hamilton Health Sciences, and is an Instructor in the Applied Clinical Research Program at McMaster University. He also serves as an Investigator at the Institute for Better Health at Trillium Health Partners.

Jeff has collaborated on research projects and guidance documents with various partners around the world, including partners at various governmental organizations, the World Health Organization, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa.

Jeff has presented his academic work at various national and international conferences including the Canadian Bioethics Society Conference, the Oxford Global Health and Bioethics International Conference, and the World Health Organization World Conference on Access to Medical Products: Achieving the SDGs 2030.