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Bio
I am a Professor of Philosophy and Healthcare Ethics at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (officially known as MCPHS University) in Boston. I am also affiliated with the Boston University Department of Philosophy, where I have been a Visiting Researcher, advised an MA thesis, and where I teach summer courses. In Spring 2016 I was a Visiting Scholar at the Neuroethics Research Unit of the Institut de Recherche Clinique de Montreal, pursuing work on the ELSITA Project (see "current research" link above). For the first half of 2017, I continued this work at the Gothenburg Responsibility Project of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. My work in Sweden was made possible by a sabbatical award from MCPHS and generous support from the Miriam Foundation of Montreal. I have also been a consultant and speaker for the cosmetics and personal products industry. My work in this area has focused on identifying ethical liability in research practices, especially involving human research participants. I have also given talks to industry meetings on a variety of other topics, including explanation in proteomic science, and ethics and product claims. My published work explores the philosophy of medicine and bioethics, including research ethics, as well as early modern philosophy and the philosophy of education. I am developing new papers on ethics and autism. For 10 years, I worked with social scientists to examine ethics in the practice of community-based research. I chair the Institutional Review Board at MCPHS and have served on IRBs at Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and at Bryn Mawr College. I have held faculty appointments at Kalamazoo College and Bryn Mawr College, and have been affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics and the Interactivity Foundation, a public policy think tank. I have provided expert bioethics commentary for Spectrum News, Channel 6 Boston (ABC), Comcast Cablevision and regional newspapers. At MCPHS I teach philosophy and bioethics to students taking degrees such as a doctor of pharmacy (PharmD), a master’s degree in physician assistant studies, or a BS in health psychology. Outside of work, I am certified in Wilderness First Aid and like to get outside co-leading trips with the Appalachian Mountain Club. As a serious amateur musician, I enjoy playing clarinet chamber music. |
2019 Presentations
Autism and Consent for Research: Defending a Kantian Approach. Dept. of Philosophy and History of Ideas, Aarhus University (Denmark), 16 Sept. 2019. Autism, Responsibility, and the Duty to Care (poster), 12th Autism Europe Congress, Nice (France), 15 Sept. 2019. Joseph A. Oddis Colloquium: Ethical Decision-Making in End-of-Life Care. With W Zellmer. American Society of Health-systems Pharmacists in Boston, 9 June 2019. LINKS My chapter on autism and research ethics will appear in a book edited by Ariel Cascio and Eric Racine. I was quoted in a Spectrum News feature on neurodiversity. The article has attracted strong debate highlighting important issues. Editorial about how philosophy can contribute to our thinking about autism (Winner of the 2019 MCPHS University prize for "scholarship of integration.") Article on autism, executive function, and reasons responsiveness Podcast recorded on 2 March 2017 by the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics 2018 TALKS Autism and Interpersonal Ethics: Who can we blame when things don’t go well? At Autscape, Tonbridge, Kent (UK), August 2018. Community Research Workers Under the Lens of Philosophical Bioethics. Society for Applied Anthropology in Philadelphia, PA, April 3-7, 2018 |