About Dr. Wagner

Jennifer K. Wagner, JD, PhD, has been a licensed attorney in Pennsylvania since October 2007. She joined Penn State as an assistant professor of law, policy, and engineering in Fall 2021. (Read More) In June 2023, Dr. Wagner joined the faculty of the department of Anthropology and her title at Penn State changed accordingly to assistant professor of law, policy, and engineering and anthropology.

Dr. Wagner’s research has been focused on the international human right to science, including human-centered design and matters of nondiscrimination, privacy, and equity with genetic/omic and mobile/digital health technologies.

Prior to joining Penn State, Dr. Wagner conducted ELSI research at Duke University’s Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy, the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Integration of Genetic Healthcare Technologies, and Geisinger’s Center for Translational Bioethics & Health Care Policy. As a 2014-2015 AAAS Science & Engineering Congressional Fellow, she assisted with science and privacy policy issues in a US Senator’s office. Her work has also been cited by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Dr. Wagner is current member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Cybersecurity & Data Privacy Committee and has served formerly as chair of the ASHG Social Issues Committee (now known as the Professional Practice and Social Implications Committee), co-chair of the Ethics Committee for the American Association of Biological Anthropologists, member of the AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, and member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Sage Bionetworks. Dr. Wagner is an Associate Editor for Human Genetics and Genomics Advances.

In addition to her primary appointment with law, policy, and engineering (LPE) in the School of Engineering Design and Innovation and her appointment with the Department of Anthropology, Dr. Wagner is an affiliate assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), a faculty member in the Bioinformatics and Genomics (BG) Program in the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, an affiliate faculty member of Penn State Law (PSL), an academic affiliate in the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS), and an academic affiliate of the Rock Ethics Institute (REI).

She is generally on social media platforms as @DNAlawyer (e.g., @dnalawyer.bsky.social; @DNAlawyer@mas.to; @dnalawyer@threads.net; etc.)