Werdie van Staden is professor of philosophy and psychiatry, director of the Centre for Ethics and Philosophy of Health Sciences at the University of Pretoria, and honorary psychiatrist at Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital.

He is chairperson of the Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Health Sciences since 2009.

He is senior editor of Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology, co-editor of the International Journal of Person-Centered Medicine; and immediate past editor-in-chief of the South African Journal of Psychiatry. Among more than 100 substantive publications, he co-edited the Oxford Handbook of Psychiatric Ethics comprising a double volume of 94 chapters authored by 140 international experts in the field, and in 2021 the book titled International Perspectives in Values-Based Mental Health.

He is co-chair of the World Psychiatric Association’s Section for Philosophy and Humanities in Psychiatry, and secretary of its Section for Classification and Nomenclature. He serves as board director of the International College of Person Centered Medicine.