“A Partnership for Good”: Profile of KIE Affiliate Faculty Member Christine Grady and GU Distinguished University Professor Anthony Fauci
Excerpted from the April 12, 2024 Georgetown Health Magazine
How nurse-bioethicist Christine Grady (N’74, G’93) and her husband, new faculty member Anthony Fauci, live their commitment to public service, health, and each other
In May 2023, the World Health Organization declared an end to the COVID-19 public health emergency. It marked the official close to a difficult chapter in human history, with nearly seven million deaths from the virus, and immeasurable hardship that impacted people the world over.
Countless Hoyas played a part in pandemic preparedness, biomedical research, and critical health care delivery during this time.
In particular, two individuals helped shape the public health response in the U.S. and they happen to be married to each other. They are double Hoya Christine Grady (N’74, G’93), who heads bioethics at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and her husband, Anthony Fauci, who recently retired as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH and is now Distinguished University Professor at Georgetown.
After more than 50 years with the NIH, Fauci had tempting offers to share his expertise at leading institutions across the country. In July 2023 he officially joined the faculty of Georgetown University School of Medicine’s Department of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, as well as the McCourt School of Public Policy.
Fauci, an immunologist, infectious disease researcher, and advisor to seven U.S. presidents, deeply values his education at Jesuit schools. Grady and Fauci were married in 1985 in Dahlgren Chapel, and they celebrated the births of their three children at Georgetown’s hospital.
Grady, an accomplished scientist and nurse bioethicist, studied biology at the School of Nursing and earned her Ph.D. in bioethics at Georgetown. Known internationally for her thought leadership on ethical issues in clinical research and clinical care, she is a senior investigator at the NIH, where she serves as chief of their Clinical Center’s Department of Bioethics and head of the department’s Section on Human Subjects Research. From 2010–2017 she was a member of the President’s Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
Staying connected to her alma mater, Grady is currently a faculty affiliate at Georgetown’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics. She has contributed extensively to biomedical and bioethics literature, on topics such as informed consent in clinical research, measuring moral distress, and the ethics of vaccine development.
As dedicated public servants and leaders in the national and global health arena, Grady and Fauci share a deep commitment to the common good. In their personal and professional lives, how do their individual views and expertise inform one another? How do they support each other while retaining their individual identities, especially after the challenges of the last four years? What role do Jesuit values play in shaping their work?