Kathleen (Katie) Hammond
Katie Hammond is an assistant professor in the Lincoln Alexander School of Law. Prior to joining the Faculty, she was a postdoctoral fellow with the Research Group on Health and Law at McGill University’s Faculty of Law and a visiting fellow with the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law and Policy at Harvard University’s Faculty of Law. She holds a JD and a BCL from McGill University Law School. She completed an MPhil in Multi-Disciplinary Gender Studies and a PhD in Legal Sociology at the University of Cambridge where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar and a Commonwealth Scholar.
Hammond’s research spans across health law and policy, science and technology law, and gender and families. Her research explores the dilemmas – legal and otherwise – that are posed in the wake of new medical technologies and their resulting markets. In particular, she specializes in the area of assisted reproductive technologies (including egg, sperm and embryo donation, surrogacy and egg freezing) and new genetic testing technologies. Her work aims to address these dilemmas by exploring how legal concepts should evolve with our rapidly changing society, and how we can take a more people-oriented approach to law-making. Hammond's work is funded by grants from bodies such as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Canadian Foundation of Legal Research, among others.
Hammond has held a number of fellowships, including with the Brocher Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland, the Embryo Project at the Center for Biology and Society at Arizona State University, and with the Marine Biological History Project in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. She has been involved with policy development in the area of reproduction for organizations such as the World Health Organization, where she was involved with organizing, and participated in the consultation for the WHO’s first ever glossary and guidelines on infertility.
Papers in Refereed Journals
Cattapan A, Hammond K & McGrath E [Forthcoming Winter 2025]. “Adolescent Access to Abortion Care in Canada: Age, Capacity, and Parental Consent.” Healthcare Policy.
Hammond K & Cattapan A [Forthcoming Winter 2025]. “Elective Egg Freezing in Canada: Developing a Framework for Consent Documents.” Journal of Medical Humanities.
Hammond K. “The Business of Egg Transactions: Reflections on the Need for Improved Regulation of the Fertility Industry.” Alberta Law Review, 62(1) 121-141.
Hammond K, 2024. “The Plurality of Norms that Shape Canadian Egg Transactions.” Journal of Legal Pluralism and Critical Social Analysis, https://doi.org/10.1080/27706869.2024.2375115 (external link) 1-24.
Hammond K, Cheung K & Ullah N, 2023. “Ontario’s Neglect of Structural Racism and Income-Related Health Inequities in its Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic” McGill Journal of Law and Health, 15(2), 134-206.
Khoury L, Klein A, Couture-Ménard M-E & Hammond K, 2022. “Government’s Accountability for Canada’s Pandemic Response,” Journal of Public Health Policy, 43(2) 222-233.
Hammond K. 2022. “Not Worth the Wait: Why the Long-Awaited Regulations Under the AHRA Don’t Address Egg Donor Concerns,” Canadian Journal of Law and Society, 37(1) 113-133.
Couture-Ménard M-E, Hammond K, Khoury L & Klein A, 2021. “Answering in Emergency: The Law and Accountability in Canada’s Pandemic Response,” University of New Brunswick Law Journal, 72, 1-46.
Hammond K. 2020. “Unnecessary and Redundant? Evaluating Canada’s Genetic Non-Discrimination Act, 2017.” Canadian Bar Review, 98(3), 480-511.
“Searching for a Summary Judgment in Quebec Procedural Law” (2020) 43:1 Dalhousie Law Journal 1-35.
“Relationally Speaking: The Implications of Treating Embryos as Property in a Canadian Context” (2019) 32:3 Canadian Journal of Family Law 323-385.
“The Role of Normative Ideologies of Motherhood in Intended Mothers’ Experiences of Egg Donation in Canada” (2019) 25:3 Anthropology & Medicine (Special Issue: Conceiving Parenthood) 265-279.
“Assisted Human Reproduction Act, 2004” (2015) ISSN: 1940-5030 Embryo Project Encyclopedia.
“Young Scholars of Reproductive Politics Reflect on Egg Freezing” (2014) 7:2 International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 236-247 (with A Cattapan, J. Haw, L.A. Tarasoff).
Chapters in Books
Hammond, K. 2022. “Chapter 4: Formation of the Agreement: Certainty of Terms” in Stephanie Ben-Ishai & David R Percy, eds, Contracts: Cases and Commentaries 11th edition (Toronto: Thomson Reuters, 2022) 113-156.
Hammond, K. 2020. “The Role of Normative Ideologies of Motherhood in Intended Mothers’ Experiences of Egg Donation in Canada” republished in Zeynep B Gürtin & Charlotte Faircloth, eds, Conceiving Contemporary Parenthood (London: Routledge, 2020) 265-279. [Peer-reviewed]
Policy Papers
Joint Submission to Health Canada on Prepublication of Proposed Regulations to the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, 10 January 2019 (with V. Gruben, A Cattapan, A. Cameron, K. Busby, D. Singh, F. Baylis, S. Carsley, I Côté, K. Fulfer, K. Lavoie, A. Petropanagos, P. White).
Submission to Health Canada on Prepublication of Proposed Regulations to the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, 29 November 2016.
Awards
Toronto Metropolitan University Provost’s Award for Teaching Excellence (Innovation in Teaching Stream), 2024
Lincoln Alexander Law Students' Society Professor of the Year Award, 2022
Toronto Metropolitan University Dean’s Scholarly, Research and Creative Activity Award, 2022
Best Psychosocial Paper Award, Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society, 2016
Yves Caron Memorial Award (McGill University Faculty of Law), 2016
University of Cambridge Distinction on the PhD (viva passed with no corrections), 2016
Brocher Foundation Fellowship, 2016
Marine Biological History Project Fellow, Wood’s Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, 2015
Embryo Project Fellowship, Center for Biology & Society, Arizona State University, 2014
Wolfson College Fellows Award, University of Cambridge, 2013
William Vaughan Lewis MPhil Research Award, 2012
External Funding
SSHRC Connections Grant, "Governing Reproduction: Exploring Law and Politics in Canada" 2024, co-applicant
Canadian Foundation for Legal Research "Best Interests of the Indigenous Child: An Analysis of the Use of Section 10 of An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families in Recent Case Law" 2024-2025, principal investigator
SSHRC Insight Development Grant, "Elective Egg Freezing in Canada: Towards Appropriate Regulation Governing Consent" 2022-2024, principal investigator
SSHRC Explore Grant, "Elective Egg Freezing in Canada: Towards Appropriate Regulation Governing Consent" 2021-2022, principal investigator
SSHRC Insight Grant, "Ova Obscura: Egg Donors in Canada" 2021-2024, co-applicant
Cambridge Commonwealth Trust Scholarship, University of Cambridge, 2012-2016
Gates Cambridge Scholarship, University of Cambridge, 2011-2012
| Degree | Institution | Year |
|---|---|---|
| JD (Juris Doctor) | McGill University | 2019 |
| BCL (Master of Civil Law) | McGill University | 2019 |
| PhD (Doctor of Sociology) with Distinction | University of Cambridge | 2016 |
| MPhil (Master of Philosophy in Gender Studies) | University of Cambridge | 2012 |
| BA (Bachelor of Arts in Legal Studies & Psychology) | Carleton University | 2011 |