We are delighted to welcome Dr Chloë Cass as a postdoctoral researcher on the ERC PatentsInHumans team!
Prior to starting on the ERC PatentsInHumans project in November 2026, Chloë was PhD researcher with Maynooth University and before that, a practising barrister in the Republic of Ireland. Her practice was a general civil practice in Dublin and the Eastern Circuit. This practice experience went on to shape her PhD research project “Vulnerability, The Neoliberal Legal Subject and the CervicalCheck Plaintiffs in the Irish Personal Injury Process’ (supervised by Dr Sinéad Ring).
Chloë’s doctoral project explored the legal construction of the CervicalCheck plaintiff, and the impact this had on the plaintiff’s experience as they navigated the Personal Injury process in Ireland. It reported on findings from semi-structured qualitative interviews with CervicalCheck misdiagnosis plaintiffs and CervicalCheck misdiagnosis plaintiff lawyers. It argued that the construction of the plaintiff is historically and culturally contingent, challenging the orthodox rhetoric around why there were minimal supports for CervicalCheck plaintiffs. This feminist, socio-legal research project was funded by Research Ireland, through the Government of Ireland Scholarship.
Chloë’s research practice touches upon diverse schools of legal thought including law and emotions, feminist jurisprudence, legal consciousness and vulnerability theory. Her research approach mirrors her career thus far, drawing feminist praxis, socio-legal methodologies and a focus on the lived impacts of the law together to create impactful insights into legal institutions. She is looking forward to bringing her particular experience/skillset to the ERC PatentsInHumans Project including contributing to the empirical strand of this project.
The ERC PatentsInHumans project is led by Professor Aisling McMahon (School of Law and Criminology), & ALL (Assisted Living and Learning) Institute, Maynooth University). It examines the bioethical issues posed by patent grant and use over emerging health-technologies, and avenues to embed such considerations within European patent decision-making systems. This project is funded by the European Union (ERC, PatentsInHumans, Project No. 101042147). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
You can find out more about the project: www.patentsinhumans.eu