I am a psychiatrist and ethicist interested in how ethics and philosophy can improve mental health care. After completing my medical and psychiatry training at KU Leuven University in Belgium, I earned a PhD in bioethics and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in bioethics at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, after which I held a three-year research grant from Belgium’s public research council (FWO). More recently, I was a joint faculty fellow at the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University and the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School.

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While practicing psychiatry in Belgium, I experienced the particularly complex ethical challenge of facing patients who request and receive psychiatric euthanasia. I decided to pursue rigorous empirical and philosophical research on this issue, not because I advocate for the practice but because it poses foundational questions for contemporary medicine and, indeed, our humanity. My research has examined actual cases and established evidence for the profound moral and policy questions the practice raises, including the striking gender gap, the legitimacy of psychiatry as a medical field, and how we should define an 'incurable' mental disorder. 

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My research interests lie in the philosophy of mental health as it applies to high-stakes issues like psychiatric euthanasia, suicide prevention, psychosurgery, and psychedelics.  My work was published in journals like the British Journal of Psychiatry, Psychological Medicine, American Journal of Bioethics, and Journal of Medical Ethics. I also engaged in public writing and provided expert testimony to the Canadian Parliament regarding the country's medical assistance in dying law.  I am currently at work on a book titled "The Challenge of Psychiatric Euthanasia for Modern Society".​