Dr. Jana Sedlakova is an interdisciplinary researcher bringing methods and insights from philosophy and ethics into other disciplines, mainly at the intersection of data science, health research, and sustainability.

She obtained a PhD from the Institute of Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine of the University of Zurich, focusing on the ethics of conversational AI in mental healthcare. In 2022, she joined a complementary PhD Program “DSI Excellence PhD Program” of the Digital Society Initiative to strengthen her research with the focus on societal and ethical issues of digitalization. She also chairs two scientific communities: Ethics and Health at the DSI. Finally, she was affiliated with the Institute of Implementation Science in Healthcare to work on more empirically oriented research.

Her PhD research was at the intersection of medical ethics, philosophy of technology, ethics of AI and health research. She focused on the ethical and epistemic challenges and requirements regarding human-AI interaction with a particular focus on healthcare conversational agents used in the context of mental health and well-being. She was also involved in projects focusing on the public legitimacy of digital research methods, the challenges and requirements of the use of digital unstructured data in health research and the use of technologies in shared decision-making. In her research, she aims to bridge the normative, theoretical methods with empirical research.

Her research output includes 15 peer-reviewed articles and three book chapters, regular presentations at national and international conferences, and interdisciplinary outreach activities. Her publications span leading journals in biomedical ethics, including American Journal of Bioethics, forthcoming chapters from the Oxford University Press, and commentary for the Hastings Center Report. She has presented her research at leading international venues, including the Oxford Global Health and Bioethics International Conference, Alan Turing Institute, and the World Congress of Psychiatry. She also continuously organizes workshops, series of lectures and events for public, professional and academic audiences.