Dr Chris Dietz
Senior Research Associate
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK), 2018
- PhD in Socio-Legal Studies (University of Leeds), 2016
- MA in Criminological Research (University of Leeds), 2013
- LLB in Law and European Law (University of Leeds), 2012
Medicine & Health
Intl Ctr for Future Health Sys
I am a socio-legal scholar interested in the intersection of health justice, technology, and embodiment. My research focuses on how trust in health systems is affected by law, particularly when it involves priority populations. I joined the International Centre for Future Health Systems in February 2025, and became an Associate of the Australian Human Rights Institute (AHRI) soon after. Previously, I was a Lecturer in Law & Social Justice at the University of Leeds (UK). I have undertaken visiting fellowships at the Unit of Gender Studies, Linkoping University (Sweden), the Centre for Gender Studies, Karlstad University (Sweden), and the Center for Gender Studies, University of Copenhagen (Denmark).
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I was awarded $15k by the UNSW Law & Justice and Australian Human Rights Institute Joint Seed Funding Scheme to investigate ‘Professional Boundaries in the Regulation of Treatment for Trans Children in Australia’ in 2025.
Before I joined UNSW I was awarded a Michael Beverley Innovation Fellowship to support my research into the ethical consequences of the prescription of wearable fitness devices in health care systems. My largest award to date was UK Economic and Social Research Council 1+3 studentship that funded my MA and PhD research at the University of Leeds.
My most recently concluded project considered the emerging prescription of wearable devices in the UK National Health System. The main output from this was co-authored by Josh Warburton and published in Medical Law Review.
Much of my previous research has considered the regulation of gendered embodiment, with a primary focus on promoting equitable access to trans health care. This includes the first empirically based and theoretically informed investigation of the effectiveness of the ‘self-declaration model’ of legal gender recognition in Denmark – conducted at a time when it was the second state to have adopted this model worldwide.
After releasing a Briefing Paper which summarises my work for non-academic audiences, and a monograph entitled ‘Self-Declaration in the Legal Recognition of Gender’ (Routledge 2023), I was invited to present my work at various conferences. I also gave evidence to the Scottish Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee as part of their consultation into the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill 2022.
Mitch Travis, Michael Thomson, and I edited A Jurisprudence of the Body (Palgrave Macmillan 2020), which brought international scholars together to examine health law and the place of the body within it. I also co-authored (with Julie Wallbank) two publications on the law governing assisted reproductive technologies.