Sonia Allan is an Associate Professor of Health Law at Deakin University, and an independent Consultant to government, not-for-profits and private organisations. She is also a Senior Fellow at Melbourne University Law School. She holds a Bachelor of Laws (Hons), Bachelor of Arts (Psych)(Hons), Master of Public Health (w Merit), Master of Laws (Global Health Law)(w Distinction) and a PhD in law. Her PhD examined the regulation of research involving human embryos and cloning technologies; regulatory theory, method and compliance; and public consultation, policy and law making in contentious areas of medicine and science.
Sonia’s work has continued to span the ethical, legal, and social issues raised by existing and emerging health technologies, including assisted reproduction and related matters. She also has expertise in public and international global health law. She has been recognised via a number of prestigious fellowships and awards including that she was a 2011 Global Health Law Fellow at Georgetown University Law School, Washington D.C., where in 2012 she also won the CALI Award for Health and Human Rights. She is also a Churchill Fellow.
Sonia has participated in numerous federal and state government inquiries, as well as in international forums, over a period of fifteen years, on matters relevant to assisted reproduction, donor conception, and surrogacy. She has been very influential in law reform. She also sits on the International Federation of Fertility Societies Surveillance Committee, which surveys laws and practices in these areas tri-annually around the globe. From 2015-2017 she led the review of the South Australian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act, with that government committing to implement law and policy that best reflects Dr. Allan’s recommendations in late 2017.
Her work has been published nationally and internationally, in peer reviewed articles and books. Her books include The Patient and Practitioner: Health Law and Ethics in Australia (Lexis Nexis, 2014), Donor Conception and the Search for Information: From Secrecy and Anonymity to Openness (Routledge, 2017), and Law and Ethics for Health Professionals (Elsevier, upcoming). Sonia has also written a number of significant reports, numerous submissions for government, and articles for the media. In addition she runs a community information website on health law.