Course Faculty (June 2-6, 2008)

Tom Beauchamp, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. In 1976, he joined the staff of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, where he wrote the bulk of the Belmont Report. He is a noted scholar of the 18th c. Scottish philosopher, David Hume. With James F. Childress, Ph.D., Tom authored the seminal work (and the IBC course book), Principles of Biomedical Ethics, now in its 6th edition. His research interests are in the history of modern philosophy and practical ethics, in particular biomedical and business ethics.
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Laura J. Bishop, Ph.D., Research Associate at the National Reference for Bioethics Literature, Kennedy Institute of Ethics, has research interests that include the role of the family in medical decision making, bioethics education in secondary schools, resources for teaching ethics, and curriculum development. She is responsible for public education and outreach on behalf of the collection. She is part of a writing team put together by the Education Development Center, Inc., that is preparing a bioethics curriculum supplement for high school biology courses for the NIH’s Office of Science Education and Clinical Center for Bioethics.
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Alisa Carse, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University, and Faculty Affiliate of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics. Her teaching and research are centered in moral theory, social and political theory, moral psychology, and gender theory. She has written widely on vulnerability and human flourishing, care and justice.
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James F. Childress, Ph.D., is the Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics and Professor of Medical Education at the University of Virginia, where he directs the Institute for Practical Ethics. In 1990 he was named Professor of the Year in the state of Virginia by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. He is the author of numerous articles and several books, including Principles of Biomedical Ethics with Tom Beauchamp, Practical Reasoning in Bioethics, Who Should Decide? Paternalism in Health Care and Priorities in Biomedical Ethics. He was a member of the presidentially-appointed National Bioethics Advisory Commission.
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F. Daniel Davis, Ph.D., former associate dean for educational planning and evaluation at GU Medical Center and now Executive Director, President’s Council on Bioethics with interests including clinical reasoning, decisionmaking, theory and method in clinical ethics, end of life care, the moral development of health professionals, and educational reform in medicine.
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John Gluck, Ph.D., is a professor emeritus of psychology, University of New Mexico, and a faculty affiliate of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics. In his capacity as Senior Bioethicist at the Health Sciences Institute for Ethics he has taught nursing and medical students for many years concerning topics of professional ethics, research, and clinical ethics. Dr. Gluck has published widely on the topics of the effects of early rearing on behavioral development, research and clinical ethics.
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John Keown, D.Phil., D.Phil., is the Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Christian Ethics at Georgetown University. John has written extensively on The law and ethics of medicine, with particular reference to issues at the beginning and end of life. He recently authored Considering Physician Assisted Suicide.
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Loretta Kopelman, Ph.D., is a Professor at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, where she founded and chaired its Department of Medical Humanities. She was founding president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Research with Children. She is a Fellow of the Hastings Center, and serves on many editorial boards and on the American Philosophic Association’s Committee on Philosophy and Medicine. She has published widely including topics in bioethics, medical ethics, the rights retarded individuals, research ethics, philosophy and medicine, the fair allocation of health care resources, and especially on children’s rights and welfare.
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*Maggie O. Little, Ph.D., the IBC Course Director, is a philosopher with graduate degrees from the University of Oxford and UC-Berkeley. She has published on a broad range of topics in ethics, from moral epistemology and moral realism to applied issues in bioethics. She has written on surrogate motherhood, abortion, method in moral theory, and the objectivity of ethics. Her publications include Abortion, Intimacy and the "Duty" to Gestate, and she is co-editor of a book with Brad Hooker, Moral Particularism.
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*Edmund Pellegrino, M.D., is Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Medical Ethics at the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University Medical Center. In fall 2005, Dr. Pellegrino was appointed as the Chair of the President’s Council on Bioethics. Dr. Pellegrino has authored over 550 published items in medical science, philosophy, and ethics and is a member of numerous editorial boards. He is the author or co-author of 19 books, and the founding editor of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. Dr. Pellegrino has been awarded 46 honorary doctorates, in addition to other honors and awards.
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*Madison Powers, J.D., D.Phil., is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. Research interests include political, legal, and moral philosophy with a special interest in the intersection of law, ethics, and health policy. Dr. Powers has published numerous journal articles and book chapters on a variety of topics in normative and practical philosophy. He is co-editor, with Ruth Faden and Gail Geller, of Aids, Women and the Next Generation. He has participated in many private and governmental advisory bodies including the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) for the NIH. Drs. Powers and Faden are co-authors of Social Justice: The Moral Foundations of Public Health and Health Care Policy.
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Karen Stohr, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. Karen’s main research area is ethics, with a focus on Aristotelian virtue ethics and Kantian ethics. She is also interested in bioethics, particularly in the Catholic tradition. Her present research concerns the virtue of practical wisdom, moral responsibility and moral luck, the Kantian duty of beneficence, and moral obligations to improve the moral perfection of others.
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Carol Taylor, R.N., Ph.D., is the Director of the Center for Clinical Bioethics, a Senior Scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and Assistant Professor of Nursing at Georgetown University. Carol has a PhD in Philosophy with a concentration in bioethics from Georgetown University and a Master’s Degree in Medical-Surgical Nursing. Experienced in caring for patients who are chronically and critically ill and their families, Carol now works closely with health care professionals who are exploring the ethical dimensions of their practice. She lectures and writes on various issues in healthcare ethics and serves as an ethics consultant to systems and professional organizations. Carol teaches bioethics in the medical and nursing schools, is a member of the GUH ethics committee and consult team, conducts ethics rounds and case presentations, and develops professional seminars in health care ethics for health care professionals and the public. Her research interests include professional and organizational ethics, and healthcare decisionmaking.
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*Robert M. Veatch, Ph.D., is Professor of Medical Ethics at Georgetown University. He writes extensively on medical ethics, including pharmacy and nursing ethics. He is the Senior Editor of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal and the Newsletter on Ethics and Intellectual Disability. He frequently serves as an expert witness in cases of medical ethics, and may be best known as the ethics consultant in the case of Baby K. He has worked extensively in areas of death and dying, human experimentation, and organ transplantation. Among many other books, he is the author of Transplantation Ethics and The Basics of Bioethics.
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*LeRoy Walters, Ph.D., is the Joseph P. Kennedy Professor of Christian Ethics at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics. He is a former director of the Institute, with special interests in ethical issues in eugenics, human genetics, and international stem cell research policies. He teaches courses on “Ethics and Human Genetics", “Eugenics and Ethics," and “Ethics and the Holocaust." His most recent books include co-authoring with Tom Beauchamp, Contemporary Issues in Bioethics, and The Ethics of Human Gene Therapy with Julie Gage Palmer.
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David Wendler, Ph.D., is head of the Unit on Vulnerable Populations in the Department of Clinical Bioethics at the NIH. He is a philosopher trained in the philosophy of science, and has been a consultant to numerous organizations, including the Council of International Organizations of Medical Sciences, the American College of Cardiology, the National Institute on Aging, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. He has served as a member on 4 NIH IRBs, and is currently a member of the IRB of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. His current research focuses on clinical research with individuals who are unable to provide informed consent.
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Last updated on March 6, 2008 - Feedback