Kristien Hens

Research professor, University of Antwerp, BE

Kristien Hens, PhD, is a research professor at the University of Antwerp, Department of Philosophy and the PI of the ERC-StG NeuroEpigenEthics. She earned a PhD in Biomedical Sciences (bioethics) in 2010 at the KU Leuven on the ethics of using stored DNA samples from children for research. She earned a second PhD in philosophy in 2018 at the University of Antwerp on the ethics and philosophy of autism. Her main interests are the ethics and philosophy of neurodiversity and the normative implications of concepts of biology. She studies the ethics of proteomics, microbiomics and epigenetics, and entanglement of health and environment. She investigates how insights from non-Western relational ontologies and posthuman feminism can advance bioethics. She wrote several books, including Towards an Ethics of Autism (2021, Open Book Publishers) and Chance Encounters (2022, Open Book Publishers).