Hrefna D. Gunnarsdóttir is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Iceland and a researcher at WELMA – Centre for Legal Studies in Welfare and Market at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen (UCPH). In her research Hrefna focuses on statutory requirements for science, ethics and technology, particularly in relation to scientific research in the field of health, the use of health data, research reciprocity and the welfare of research participants and patients. Hrefna’s research has been published in Journal of Law and the Biosciences, Medical Law International and the Cambridge Handbook of Information Technology, Life Sciences and Human Rights. She has been a visiting scholar at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at the Harvard Law School as well as at the Faculty of Law at Uppsala University. Hrefna is a board member of the Nordic Per Med Law - a network working with legislation for modern medicine, serves on the International Experts Panel of the Genetic Discrimination Observatory and contributes to various subgroups of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health. Hrefna is furthermore a member of IASC's Justice in the Arctic Working Group and is specifically interested in data governance and research reciprocity in the environmental, societal and cultural context of the circumpolar North.
Prior to academia, Hrefna practiced as an Attorney-at-Law at Réttur - Aðalsteinsson & Partners, a litigation and human rights law firm based in Reykjavík, Iceland. She has contributed to policy making and research of the Icelandic government, the Icelandic Bar Association, and the Human Rights Institute at the Univ. of Iceland. Her professional experience also includes variety of cross-sectoral projects in different regional and country context ranging between the archipelago of Svalbard and Tamil Nadu in India. She has held two consultancies with the UNHCR and provided legal advice in the Moria detention camp on behalf of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe via European Lawyers in Lesvos, Greece.
Hrefna holds a PhD from the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen which she undertook at the Center for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law (CeBIL), MA in Disaster Management from the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at UCPH and Mag. Juris and BA in Law from the University of Iceland. She was admitted to the Icelandic Bar Association in 2013.
Research interests: Human rights, dignity, and welfare; Health law, research regulation, reciprocity, data governance and sovereignty; Law and ethics in relation to science and emerging technologies.
