Bio
I am 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 link above). For the Spring 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 serve as 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 the last 10 years I have been working 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 Channel 6 Boston (ABC), for Comcast Cablevision and for 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.
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RECENT AND CURRENT PUBLICATIONS
Richman, Kenneth A. Autism and Moral Responsibility: Executive Function, Reasons Responsiveness, and Reasons Blockage. Neuroethics. Forthcoming.

Richman, K A, and R Bidshahri. Autism, Theory of Mind, and the Reactive Attitudes. Bioethics. Forthcoming 2017.
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Richman, K A. “Drug-Centered Care, Disease Mongering and Quality of Life.” In Ho, Dien, ed. Philosophical Issues in Pharmaceutics: Development, Dispensing, and Usage. Dordrecht: Springer, 2017.

Richman, K A. "Autism and Moral Responsibility." Brainstorm. June 2016 9(10) , pp. 5-6.

Richman, K A. "Philosophical Perspectives on Dignity." In S Levine (ed), Dignity Matters: Psychoanalytic and Psychosocial Perspectives. London: Karnac, 2015, pp. 49-59.

Richman, K A "Autism, the Social Thinking curriculum and moral courage." Power and Education, Nov 2015, 7: pp. 355-360.

Richman, K A, L B Alexander and G True. "How do Street-level Research Workers Think about the Ethics of Doing Research 'On the Ground' with Marginalized Target Populations?"  AJOB: Empirical Bioethics 2015, 6(2), pp. 1-11.

RECENT PODCAST
Recorded by the Oxford Uheiro Centre for Practical Ethics 2 March 2017

RECENT TALKS
​(for recent autism-related talks, see the ELSITA page)
Complex Relationships and Conflicting Values: Field-level Workers in Community-Based Research. Institute for Ethics, History and Theory of Medicine
Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich, 11 May 2017

Dignity and the Goals of Therapy: An Approach from Philosophy and the Medical Humanities, Medical Humanities Centre, University of Gothenburg, 5 May 2017.

Ethics: The Bridge between Science and Product Claims. Cosmetic Claim Substantiation: Science, Marketing and Regulation. New York Society of Cosmetic Chemists, Weehawken, NJ, 6 September 2016

Complex Relationships and Conflicting Values: Community Health Workers in Community Based Research. With L B Alexander and G True. Society for Applied Anthroplogy, Vancouver, BC, 1 April 2016.