Vanessa Ann MacDonnell

Vanessa MacDonnell joined the Faculty of Law (Common Law Section) in 2012. An internationally recognized expert in Canadian and comparative constitutional law, human rights and the protection of democracy, she holds the University Research Chair in Democratic Constitutionalism and is founding Co-Director of the uOttawa Public Law Centre , a position she has held since 2019.

Professor MacDonnell’s innovative scholarship takes readers inside the institutions of state, shedding new light on how policymakers and courts approach constitutional questions. Employing doctrinal, comparative, theoretical, and empirical approaches, her research has generated fresh insights about the actors and processes at the heart of constitutional government. She is currently the Canadian Principal Investigator on a $1.7 million interdisciplinary, international research project on unwritten constitutional norms and principles, funded in Round 7 of the Open Research Area competition.