Michele Goodwin, Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Founding Director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy at the University of California, Irvine School of Law (UCI Law), has joined The Hastings Center’s board of directors.

She will serve on the board in her capacity as chair-elect of The Hastings Center Fellows Council.

Professor Goodwin is a distinguished constitutional law scholar, with much of her work focused on health and family law, as well as reproductive rights and bioethics. She is the host of the popular podcast, “On the Issues with Michele Goodwin,” at Ms. magazine. Her writings address pressing matters of law, society, and global health. Her books include Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood (2020), Baby Markets: Money and the Politics of Creating Families (2010), and Black Markets: The Supply and Demand of Body Parts (2006). She has written extensively for scholarly and public audiences, and has received a wide array of honors both nationally and locally.

Professor Goodwin was elected a Hastings Center fellow in 2019. Fellows are a group of individuals of outstanding accomplishment whose work has informed scholarship and/or public understanding of complex ethical issues in health, health care, life sciences research, and the environment. 

“The distinguished leaders of the Fellows Council, who serve four-year terms on our board, always make important contributions to the work of the board and The Hastings Center,” said Bradford Gray, chairman of the Board of Directors. “Professor Goodwin’s areas of scholarship and her commitment to public engagement offer important perspectives. We welcome her with enthusiasm.”

The Hastings Center is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization that helped establish the field of bioethics in 1969.