(Garrison, NY) The Hastings Center, the world’s first research center devoted to bioethics, has strengthened its international network of Fellows by electing ten new members from four different countries. The Fellowship is an elected association of researchers, whose work in numerous fields has been influential in bioethics. It was established shortly after The Hastings Center was founded in 1969. Hastings Center Fellows now number 195, including members in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.
Hastings Center president Thomas H. Murray said of the new members, “They bring great distinction to the Fellowship as well as invigorating diversity in their interests, disciplines, and nationalities.”
Dr. Joseph Fins, M.D., F.A.C.P, vice chair of The Hastings Center Fellows, said, “I want to extend a warm welcome to the Fellowship and my congratulations on this honor.”
Newly elected Americans include: Paul Appelbaum, M.D, Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University; Susan Lederer, Ph.D., Professor of Medical History and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin; Gail Geller, D.Sc., Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; Alex London, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University; Patricia Marshall, Ph.D., Professor of Bioethics at Case Western University; and Dorothy Roberts, J.D., Professor of Law at Northwestern University Law School
New international Fellows include: Florencia Luna, Ph.D., Director of the Bioethics Program, University of Buenos Aires; Jing Bao Nie, Ph.D., author of Behind the Silence; Jan Payne, Ph.D., Director of the Bioethics Project, Charles University, Prague; and Xiaomei Zhai, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Centre for Bioethics at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.
Fellows’ backgrounds include medicine, science, law, social sciences, and journalism, in addition to bioethics. The Hastings Center draws upon its research staff as well as the Fellows in considering important ethical questions raised by advances in science and medicine and addressed by policymakers. Issues include personalized medicine, health reform, end-of-life care, genetic testing, physician-assisted death, synthetic biology, doping in sports, reproductive decisions, conflict of interest, biosecurity, and neuropharmacology – issues that shape society as a whole and affect the lives of individuals from birth to death.
Additional information on The Hastings Center’s new Fellows:
United States
Paul Appelbaum is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, and Law and Director of the Division of Law, Ethics, and Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University. He has been very active in forensic psychiatry, an area that is currently being transformed by advances in neuroimaging and genomics. His record of service is extraordinary, having served as President of the American Psychiatric Society and of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine.
Gail Geller is a Professor of Medicine in the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins with affiliations in the Department of Pediatrics in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Departments of Health Policy and Management and Health, Behavior and Society in the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Her work on the impact of advances in genetics on patients, providers, and the health care system has been critical to the development of policy in this area for more than two decades.
Susan Lederer chairs the Department of Medical History and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, where she is the Robert Turell Professor of Medical History and Bioethics. Her work focuses on the history of medical research and the use (and abuse) of the body in medicine and medical research. She brings a deep background in the medical humanities and the gifts and sensibilities of a historian.
Alex London is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Ethics and Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a co-editor of the two most recent editions of Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine (McGraw Hill), a widely used collection of essays. In 2007 he received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. His main area of scholarship is ethical issues in medical research.
Patricia Marshall is Professor of Bioethics and Associate Professor of Anthropology at Case Western University, where she focuses on multiculturalism and the application of bioethics practices. Her research activities include a cross-cultural study of informed consent to genetic epidemiological research in the U.S. and Nigeria, and she is a member of the investigative team for the development of a haplotype map for the human genome at project sites in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa. Dorothy Roberts joined Northwestern’s law school faculty in fall 1998 with a joint appointment as a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research. She is a frequent speaker and prolific scholar on issues related to race, gender, and the law. She has published more than 75 articles and essays in books and scholarly journals, written three award-winning books, and co-edited five casebooks and anthologies. She is currently conducting research on the effects of child welfare agencies’ involvement in African-American neighborhoods.
International
Florencia Luna is a leader in bioethics in Latin America. She directs the Bioethics Program at FLACSO (Latin American University of Social Sciences- Argentina) and at the University of Buenos Aires. She is a former president and board member of the International Association of Bioethics. She is a temporary advisor of World Health Organization and the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS). She was a member of the Steering Committee of CIOMS working on the International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects (2002). Jing Bao Nie is the author of Behind the Silence, the first in-depth work to explore the diverse perspectives of mainland Chinese regarding induced abortion and fetal life in the context of the world’s most ambitious family planning effort. He is also the author of Medical Ethics in China: A Transcultural Interpretation, which draws from a wide range of primary historical and sociological sources to present medical ethics in China from a Chinese-Western comparative perspective. Jan Payne directs the project in bioethics at Charles University in Prague and is a leader in the bioethics community in the Czech Republic and influential in Eastern Europe more generally, having founded a bioethics journal for the region. Before the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, Payne organized illegal seminars on bioethics. He is both a physician, specializing in neurology, and a philosopher.
Xiaomei Zhai is Executive Director of the Centre for Bioethics, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS), and Professor and Director of the Department of Social Sciences and the Humanities, Peking Union Medical College (PUMC). She is also chair of the institutional review board of the AIDS Research Centre of CAMS/PUMC, a member of the Ethics Committee for the Human Genome Organization, and a member of the Chinese National Ethics Committee. She has led several national bioethics societies and was Secretary General for the 8th World Congress on Bioethics in 2006. Trained in philosophy of medicine, she focuses on public health ethics.
Learn more about The Hastings Center and its Fellows at www.thehastingscenter.org
