Nurse-Ethicist Christine Grady joins the Kennedy Institute of Ethics as a Research Scholar

Christine Grady, RN, PhD, FAAN (N’74, G’93), bioethicist and former chief of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, has been appointed to the faculty of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics (KIE) as a Research Scholar. She will also serve on the faculty of the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics. Her primary appointment will be as senior advisor to the Executive Vice President for Health Sciences on bioethics and neuroethics, and as a professor of neuroscience in the School of Medicine. She holds a secondary appointment in Georgetown’s College of Arts & Sciences as an affiliated faculty member in the department of Philosophy, and will also also work closely with Berkley School of Nursing faculty to collaborate and amplify bioethics and clinical scholarly output.

Throughout her career, which has included major publications in bioethics and service on the President’s Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues from 2010 to 2017, Dr. Grady has been a regular presence at the Kennedy Institute. She served as an affiliated faculty member at the KIE and will be a featured speaker at this week’s Festschrift in honor of the life and work of Tom Beauchamp (1939 – 2025), bioethics pioneer and Georgetown professor, with whom she studied. In addition, she will be the keynote speaker at this year’s June 9-11 Intensive Bioethics Course, a decades-long institution at Georgetown and one of the most well-known and well-regarded courses in the world.

Dr. Grady has deep roots at Georgetown, earning both her undergraduate nursing degree and her PhD here. In a School of Medicine profile published on March 24, 2026, she describes her decision to return to Georgetown as a “full circle” moment, since she studied at Georgetown in part because of the Kennedy Institute.

Georgetown’s PhD program in philosophy “was perfect for me,” Grady said, as it brought her closer to the ethical questions that she had encountered in her nursing practice and opened her eyes to the possibility of a career in bioethics. She was also attracted to the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, which was established at Georgetown in 1971.

“We see Dr. Grady’s formal arrival at Georgetown, and at the KIE in particular, as the continuation of a long and cherished friendship and collaboration,” said Daniel Sulmasy, MD, PhD, Director of the Kennedy Institute. “We are looking forward to continuing to learn from and with her.”

Read the announcement from the office of Dr. Norman Beauchamp, Executive Vice President for Health Sciences, School of Medicine
Read the School of Medicine profile