A fundamental strength of The Hastings Center is its extensive network of interdisciplinary Fellows from around the world. That network has just been strengthened with the election of eight new members for 2009.  

The Center’s new American Fellows include: Harvard surgeon and New Yorker magazine staff writer Atul Gawande; Duke University law professor Karla Holloway; University of Chicago medical ethicist Lainie Ross; Director of Emory University’s Center for Ethics Paul Root Wolpe, and Harvard Medical School chemist and molecular biologist Christopher H. Evans.

Three new international Fellows include: Abdallah Daar, Professor of Public Health Sciences and of Surgery at the University of Toronto; Diego Gracia, Professor, History of Medicine and Bioethics at the Complutense University, Madrid, Spain; and Mats G. Hansson, Director of the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics at Sweden’s Uppsala University.

Established shortly after the Center was founded in 1969, the Fellows are an elected association of researchers whose distinguished contributions in their fields have been influential in bioethics. Collectively, they possess a wealth of knowledge and experience that the Center draws upon in addressing vital ethical questions raised by advances in science and medicine, and tackled by policymakers. Among these issues are health reform, end-of-life care, genetic testing, reproductive decisions, conflict of interest, biosecurity, and neuropharmacology. These issues not only shape society as a whole, they affect individual lives - from birth to death.

The Hasting Center’s president Tom Murray commented on the newly elected group , stating,” To be elected to the Fellowship of The Hastings Center honors the exceptional achievements of each Fellow and, at the same time, brings extraordinary wisdom and expertise to the Hastings Center community.

With the appointment of these eight new members, Hastings Center Fellows now number one hundred and seventy nine.

Further information on The Hastings Center’s eight new Fellows:

Christopher H. Evans is an internationally known chemist and molecular biologist at the Harvard Medical School. A highly honored scholar, his research broadly relates to biotechnology, with special emphases in genetics and gene therapy. He has worked and made connections across disciplines and countries, and has a deep commitment to the work of The Hastings Center.

Karla Holloway is the James B. Duke Professor of English and Professor of Law at Duke University. Holloway holds appointments in the Law School, Women's Studies, and African & African American Studies. A former co-chair of the Black Faculty Caucus at Duke, she is widely recognized as a leader in bioethics at the intersection of law and the humanities, and for her talents as a writer, mentor, and advocate.

Atul Gawande is a Harvard surgeon and New Yorker magazine staff writer. He is a nationally recognized commentator on error and performance in clinical medicine and on policy issues related to the provision of health care services. A MacArthur Award recipient, Gawande is author of two recent bestselling books for the literate general reader, Complications and Better.

Lainie Ross is a general pediatrician and a medical ethicist in the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago. She serves on the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Bioethics and the Section of Bioethics. Her research interests are research ethics, genetics and ethics, transplant ethics, and pediatric ethics. She has just completed a book on children in research funded by the National Library of Medicine (Children in Medical Research: Access versus Protection, Oxford University Press, 2006) and is working on another book about ethical issues in newborn screening that was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Paul Root Wolpe is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Bioethics, the Raymond F. Schinazi Distinguished Research Chair in Jewish Bioethics, a Professor in the Departments of Medicine, Pediatrics, and Sociology, and the Director of the Center for Ethics at Emory University. He serves as the first Chief of Bioethics for NASA, is the Co-Editor of the American Journal of Bioethics, and sits on numerous editorial boards for journals of medicine and ethics. Dr. Wolpe’s tremendous body of scholarship focuses on the social, religious, and ideological impact of technology on the human condition, and has had a particular impact on the field of neuroethics.

Abdallah Daar is Professor of Public Health Sciences and of Surgery at the University of Toronto. He is also Senior Scientist and Director, Program on Ethics and Commercialization of the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health and Director of Ethics and Policy at the McLaughlin Centre for Molecular Medicine.

Diego Gracia is Professor of the History of Medicine and Bioethics at the Complutense University in Madrid. Trained in psychiatry and history, Gracia is a prolific author and widely recognized as "dean" of the field of medical history and ethics in Spain and Latin America.

Mats G. Hansson is the director of the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics at Uppsala Universitet in Sweden. He has conducted extensive research in biomedical ethics as principal investigator in several multi-disciplinary research projects dealing with issues ranging from ethical, social and legal aspects of the implementation of genetic diagnosis in clinical practice and the use of human tissue materials in research, to setting priorities in healthcare, including research on empowerment in outpatient care as a means to achieving systemic efficiency. He holds an undergraduate degree in biology (1974) and a doctoral degree of theology (1991).