National Research Act 50th Anniversary

Patricia King is Professor of Law emerita at Georgetown University Law School. Her scholarship focuses on race and genomics, racial disparities in health, and reproductive health. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, a Fellow of the Hastings Center and a faculty affiliate of Georgetown’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics. She has served on numerous national advisory bodies formed to address the ethical issues generated by developments in science and technology, including the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1974-78) that produced the seminal “Belmont Report,” the President’s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (1994-95), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Embryo Research Panel, the Ethics, Legal, and Social Issues Working Group of the NIH Human Genome Project (1989-95), and the NIH Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (1979-81).

Professor King has served on several corporate and foundation boards. In addition, she is a graduate of Wheaton College (MA) and chaired its board for five years. She is also a graduate of Harvard Law School and served on the Harvard Corporation, the governing body of Harvard University. She has received honorary degrees from Wheaton College, Harvard University, and Old Dominion University.

Ivor Pritchard, Ph.D., is the Senior Advisor to the Director of OHRP in the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) in the Department of Health and Human Services. He came to OHRP in 2004 from the Institute for Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education, where he was a Senior Research Analyst. He joined the U.S Department of Education in 1986. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Boston University. Dr. Pritchard authored or co-authored many publications including “Students as Research Subjects” (with Koski, Encyclopedia of Bioethics, 2014); “How Do IRB Members Make Decisions? A Review and Research Agenda” (Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, 2011), “Searching for ‘Research Involving Human Subjects’: What Is Examined? What Is Exempt? What Is Exasperating?” (IRB: Ethics & Human Research, 2001); “Travelers and Trolls: Practitioner Research and Institutional Review Boards” (Educational Researcher, 2002); Ethical Standards of the American Educational Research Association: Cases and Commentary (Strike et al., 2002); and “Power, Truth and Justice in Youth Participatory Action Research: Ethical Questions” (Practicing Anthropology: A Career-Oriented Publication of the Society for Applied Anthropology, 2004.) His research interests include research ethics and federal policy, moral and civic education research and practice, and education policy.

Ivy Tillman, Ed.D., CCRC, CIP, is the Executive Director of PRIM&R, advancing PRIM&R’s mission of promoting the highest ethical standards in the conduct of research through critical research policy expertise, professional development, and education to its community of professionals. Dr. Tillman brings over 18 years of leadership in research ethics and oversight, focusing on promoting the trustworthiness of research organizations. As a purposeful leader, Dr. Tillman has developed partnerships with a variety of stakeholders, bringing varied perspectives and voices together to create programs and initiatives that move research ethics conversations forward.

Rey Calabrese is a former research participant and is currently the Research and Community Coordinator at Fenway Health.

Basaime Spate is a Community Research Coordinator at the Center for Justice Innovation.

Karina L. Walters, PhD, MSW, an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, is Director of the NIH Tribal Health Research Office (THRO). In this role, she leads the THRO team and works to unify NIH representatives, research, and resources to improve the health of American Indians and Alaska Natives. She is deeply committed to engaging Tribal leadership in health research efforts. A social epidemiology and health prevention scholar, Dr. Walters has more than 28 years of Native health research experience, encompassing foundational science, disease prevention, health promotion, and intervention research. Prior to NIH, she was a tenured full professor and the Katherine Hall Chambers Scholar at the University of Washington (UW) School of Social Work. She is also the founding director of the UW Indigenous Wellness Research Institute and served from 2012-2019 as Associate Dean for Research at the UW School of Social Work. Dr. Walters is the first American Indian fellow inducted into the American Academy of Social Welfare and Social Work. She earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and an M.S.W. and a Ph.D. in social welfare, also from UCLA.

Ella Greene-Moton has an extensive background in public health advocacy, public health policy, community-based participatory research, and programming spanning the past 40+ years in the City of Flint and surrounding areas. In addition, specific efforts in public health ethics have focused on providing an awareness at the community level, developing and elevating the community voice and advocating for community inclusiveness at the state and national Levels. Her areas of expertise include facilitating community/academic/practice partnership building and sustainability; developing, managing, and evaluating community-based projects; and developing training programs for graduate students and community members, as well as middle and high school students partnering with community-based organizations, schools, and public health agencies. Ms. Greene-Moton joined the Flint Odyssey House, Inc., Health Awareness Center in 1995 and served as its assistant director from 1998-2005. She served from 2006-2019 as a community education coordinator and “Bridge” at the Center for Public Health and Community Genomics at the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. She currently serves as the Community Based Organization Partners Community Ethics Review Board administrator and the executive consultant and co-chair of the Flint/Genesee Partnership, Health in Our Hands project. She also serves as an independent community-academic consultant working with other academic institutions nationally that are engaged in community-based participatory research. On the state, regional, and national levels, Ms. Greene-Moton is a member of the Michigan Public Health Association Board of Directors and serves as the Michigan Affiliate Representative to the Governing Council of the American Public Health Association. She represents Michigan on the Great Lakes Public Health Coalition and serves as the Regional Representative for Region V on the Council on Affiliates. In addition, and along with five of her MIPHA colleagues, Ms. Greene-Moton serves as a Cohort 10 and 11 Fellow of the Leadership Academy for the Public’s Health Michigan Health Equity Team.

Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, M.D., Ph.D. is a Professor of Clinical Internal Medicine at the School of Medicine, University of California, Davis. He is the Founding Director of the Center for Reducing Health Disparities at UC Davis Health and the Director of the Community Engagement Program of the UCD Clinical Translational Science Center (CTSC). Dr. Aguilar-Gaxiola’s applied and translational research program has focused on identifying unmet health and mental health needs and associated risk and protective factors to better meet population health and mental health needs and advance equity in health and mental health in underserved populations. He and his team are committed to developing, implementing, evaluating, and disseminating innovative models of health/mental health service delivery where patients are at (where they live, work, congregate). Dr. Aguilar-Gaxiola is the author of over 210 publications. He is the recipient of multiple international, national, state, and local awards.

Laura Ruse Brosch serves as the Assistant Vice President for Research Initiatives and Compliance at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland. With 40 years of federal service, including 26 years on active military duty, she brings extensive experience, notably as the past Director of the Office of Research Protections at the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command. In this role, she spearheaded global human research protection efforts for the military. A retired Colonel in the Army Nurse Corps, Dr. Brosch specializes in research protections across various military interest areas and actively contributes to the ethical evaluation of emerging Department of Defense technologies. Holding a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, she has received awards such as the Anita Newcomb McGee Award and the Jonathan Letterman Award for her significant contributions to military medicine. Dr. Brosch’s commitment to transparent research protections and support for challenging research endeavors define her distinguished career.

Jodi Halpern M.D., Ph.D., Chancellor’s Chair and Professor of Bioethics at University of California, Berkeley, is an international leader on empathy in healthcare, respect for the rights of patients and human subjects of research, and the ethics of innovative technologies including AI, gene editing, and neurotechnology. Dr. Halpern’s book From Detached Concern to Empathy: Humanizing Medical Practice catalyzed a wave of change in medicine. Her book Remaking the Self in the Wake of Illness (expected 2024) illuminates post-traumatic growth. Her newest project, Engineering Empathy, examines AI and therapeutic relationships. Halpern co-founded the Berkeley Group on Ethics and Regulation of Innovative Technologies and the UC Berkeley Kavli Institute for Ethics, Science, and the Public. Halpern received the Guggenheim 2022 Award in Medicine and Health.

Misha Angrist is Associate Professor of the Practice in Duke University’s Social Science Research Institute and a Senior Fellow in its initiative for Science & Society. He holds an M.S. in genetic counseling, a Ph.D. in genetics, and an M.F.A. in writing. He is interested in the intersection of biology and society, especially as it relates to the governance of human participation in research and medicine. At Duke, his courses include “Responsible Conduct of Research” and “Law, Research, and Bioethics.” As the fourth participant in the Personal Genome Project, he was among the first to have his entire genome sequenced and made public, an experience he chronicled in the book Here Is a Human Being: At the Dawn of Personal Genomics. He served on the Duke University Health System IRB for five years and currently serves on the Genetic Alliance IRB.

Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and Senior Advisor for Public Trust in Science at the Aspen Institute. He previously taught philosophy at Colgate University, Boston University, Simmons University, Tufts Experimental College, and Harvard Extension School. McIntyre is the bestselling author of Post-Truth (MIT Press, 2018), which was named a CNN Book-of-the-Week in April 2018 and a Best Book of 2018 by the PBS News Hour, along with numerous other books including The Scientific Attitude (2019), How to Talk to a Science Denier (2021), and On Disinformation (2023), all published with MIT Press. His popular essays have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Nature, and Newsweek. He has appeared on CNN, PBS, MSNBC, NPR, and the BBC, and has spoken at the United Nations, NASA, and the Vatican.

Internationally recognized for his laboratory research and science advocacy, Aaron Mertz joined the Aspen Institute in 2019 as the founding Director of the Science & Society Program. He enacts projects and initiatives that test ideas to explain, connect, and maximize the benefits of science for the public good. Notable efforts include a youth initiative connecting science and social justice and a forthcoming feature-length documentary about professional challenges facing scientists. Earlier, he was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Rockefeller University. His publications span biology, physics, engineering, and science policy and have appeared in Nature, Science, Cell, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Physical Review Letters. He earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Washington University in St. Louis as a Goldwater Scholar, a master’s degree in the history of science from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and a doctorate in physics from Yale University as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and Beckman Fellow.