Senior Research Scholar Sean Aas was recently named Greenwall Foundation Faculty Scholar in Bioethics. Following a competitive application process, Aas was awarded a grant that will support his research in disability ethics for three years. The Greenwall Foundation Faculty Scholars Program connects Fellows with the Faculty Program Committee, other Scholars and Alums to offer mentoring, feedback, and guidance.

The Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program in Bioethics supports research that goes beyond current work in bioethics to help resolve pressing ethical issues in clinical care, biomedical research, and public policy.

“Dr. Aas’s research project concerns the boundaries of our body rights and will bring concepts from political philosophy to bear on bioethical issues, especially, but not exclusively, issues involving the distribution and redistribution of biological materials like blood products and organs for transplant,” KIE director Maggie Little said. “This project, a theory of bodily rights, draws on Dr. Aas’s background in bioethics and political philosophy, making much, in particular, of insights gleaned from his engagement with the literature on disability and diverse embodiment.”

Studying the legal and moral intersections of embodiment in bioethics, Aas aims to develop a full theory of bodily rights with the aid of the Greenwall Foundation. “Your body belongs to you and nobody else,” Aas said. “You should get to say what happens to it: nobody should damage, invade, or use it, without your permission. This central principle of biomedical ethics seems, almost, to be beyond justification.”