Jennifer Merchant obtained her PhD in political science from Sciences po Paris, and now teaches at the Université de Paris II. Her research privileges a pluridisciplinary approach at the crossroads of political science, law, gender studies and bioethics in Anglo-American and European countries.

She is currently working on two projects: 1) analyzing from a comparative perspective (France/European Union/United States) policies relative to gender and health care and research, and 2) comparative public policy analyses of the framing of human genome editing (HGE) and their impact on the future of human reproduction. She is a member of the Inserm Ethics Committee and of the Institut universitaire de France, and was a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Study Committee on HGE (2015-2017).

Selected publications: Procréation et politique aux Etats-Unis, 1965-2005 (Belin, 2006); “Assisted Reproductive Technology in the United States: Towards a National Regulatory Framework”, International Journal of Bioethics, 2009; “Privacy, Autonomy and Public Policy: French and North American Perspectives”, Special Issue ‘Solidarity and Autonomy: Two Conflicting Values in English and French Health Care and Bioethics Debates’, dir. Marie Gaille & Ruth Horn; Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 2016, p. 503-516; “Droit constitutionnel du vivant aux Etats-Unis”, in La nature comme horizon pour la Constitution: Bioéthique et environnement, dir. Xavier Bioy et Olivier Cayla, Paris, Mare & Martin, 2017; and forthcoming Access to Assisted Reproductive Technologies: The Case of France and Belgium, Borders and Beyond, London, Berghahn Books, early 2019.