Swapna Sundar is a lawyer, IP Strategist, author and ethicist. She studies the relationship between the law, regulatory standards and ethics, and applies the learnings to diverse Sdomains in Indian governance. These include technology and law, police riot control methods, the phenomenon of Occupy movements and the government's public health duties during protests.
In the area of practical ethical transformation, she works towards enforcement of regulatory standards to guarantee safety of women, and also training in ethical praxis focusing on norms that exist in vocabulary but are not readily reduced to demonstrable behaviour. Her long-term aspiration is to develop a robust methodology and practice to bridge the chasm between
lived reality and received values. Having graduated from the prestigious Madras Christian College in 1997, she went on to study law at the Dr. Ambedkar Law College, Chennai, and earned a post-graduate degree in International Law with International Relations at the Brussels School of International Studies. She served as a Teaching Assistant in Constitutional and Administrative Law at the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK. Her interest in ethics was triggered by her work with inventors and clinical trials. Swapna has served as Member – Legal of several institutional human ethics committees in Chennai, including IIT-Madras, SRM Medical College and Hospital, SIMS Hospital, Tagore Dental College, Malar Hospital, the ICMRNational Institute of Epidemiology and National Institute of Siddha. She is currently the chairperson of the Apollo Institutional Biomedical Research Ethics Committee. Swapna also trains committees in SOPs and research design.