3600 Civic Center Blvd, 5-031 (Hybrid via Zoom)
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "Listening From the Inside: Partnering With Incarcerated Men to Navigate Health and Dignity" - Rose Onyeali, MD
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2026-09-01 12:00:00
2026-09-01 13:00:00
America/New_York
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "Listening From the Inside: Partnering With Incarcerated Men to Navigate Health and Dignity" - Rose Onyeali, MD
Listening From the Inside: Partnering With Incarcerated Men to Navigate Health and Dignity
Rose Onyeali, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine (Geriatrics)
Perelman School of Medicine | University of Pennsylvania
“We want to impact the world even from here. It isn’t too late for us.”
This statement, shared by an incarcerated man, reframes how we think about care, dignity, and possibility within carceral spaces. “Listening From the Inside: Partnering with Incarcerated Men to Navigate Health and Dignity” traces the journey of entering facilities such as State Correctional Institutions—not only to provide health education, but to build meaningful partnerships rooted in trust and mutual respect.
Through the Health Education and Advocacy for Incarcerated Populations (HEAL) collaboration with the Senior Life Enhancement Program (SLEP), this work began as a model for delivering health information to older incarcerated men and evolved into a space of shared learning and dialogue.
The most transformative insights came not from what was taught, but from what was heard. The men’s reflections on aging, chronic illness, and navigating healthcare systems challenged traditional assumptions and revealed critical gaps in care and communication.
This presentation centers those lessons and examines how they extend beyond prison walls—shaping advocacy, informing clinical practice, and challenging us to redesign healthcare systems. Ultimately, it calls on clinicians to listen differently, partner more intentionally, and recognize that dignity and impact are not confined by circumstance.
Registration Required
3600 Civic Center Blvd, 5-031 (Hybrid via Zoom)
Penn Medical Ethics
3600 Civic Center Blvd, 11-102AB (Hybrid)
Research Ethics & Policy Series (REPS): "Intentionally Infecting Humans: is it Ethical?" - Seema Shah, JD, HEC-C
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2026-09-08 12:00:00
2026-09-08 13:00:00
America/New_York
Research Ethics & Policy Series (REPS): "Intentionally Infecting Humans: is it Ethical?" - Seema Shah, JD, HEC-C
Intentionally Infecting Humans: Is it Ethical?
Seema Shah, JD, HEC-C
Founder’s Board Professor of Medical Ethics
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Lurie Children’s Hospital
In controlled human infection (CHI) research, researchers intentionally expose people to pathogens to gain powerful scientific insights. CHI research has led to key breakthroughs but remains controversial. In this talk, Prof. Shah will first provide a brief historical overview of this research, demonstrating how ethically problematic research from the past still casts a shadow on research today. She will then explain modern CHI research, demonstrating how a fundamental lack of understanding of this research contributed to ethical controversy during the COVID-19 pandemic that has persisted. Finally, Prof. Shah will provide an ethical framework to govern the appropriate use of this research going forward, with implications for research ethics oversight more generally.
Registration required; Lunch provided
Streaming available via Zoom.
3600 Civic Center Blvd, 11-102AB (Hybrid)
Penn Medical Ethics
CCB 05-031, 5th Floor, 3600 Civic Center Blvd. (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Health Policy Research Seminar: Sonia Bhalotra, FBA
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2026-09-10 12:00:00
2026-09-10 13:00:00
America/New_York
Health Policy Research Seminar: Sonia Bhalotra, FBA
Topic: "Antidepressant Treatment in Childhood."
Lunch will be served. While registration is not required to attend, we encourage you to respond so we can plan appropriately for catering. Please register here.
Mental health disorders tend to emerge in childhood, with half starting by age 14. This makes
early intervention important, but treatment rates are low, and antidepressant treatment for children
remains controversial since an FDA warning in 2004 that highlighted adverse effects. Linking
individuals across Danish administrative registers, we provide some of the first evidence of
impacts of antidepressant treatment in childhood on objectively measured mental health indicators
and economic outcomes over time, and the first attempt to investigate under- vs overtreatment.
Leveraging conditional random assignment of patients to psychiatrists with different
prescribing tendencies, we find that treatment during ages 8-15 improves test scores at age
16, particularly inMath, increases enrollment in post-compulsory education at age 18, and that
it leads to higher employment and earnings and lower welfare dependence at ages 25–30. We
demonstrate, on average, a reduction in suicide attempts, self-harm, and hospital visits following
AD initiation. The gains to treatment are, in general, larger for low SES children, but they
are less likely to be treated. Using a marginal treatment effects framework andMath scores as the
focal outcome, we show positive returns to treatment among the untreated. Policy simulations
confirm that expanding treatment among low SES children (and boys) generates substantial net
benefits, consistent with under-treatment in these groups. Our findings underscore the potential
of early mental health treatment to improve longer term economic outcomes and reducing
inequality.
Sonia Bhalotra is Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick. Her research has contributed to identifying elements of the micro-foundations of inequality and social mobility, with a focus on health and gender. She uses experimental methods on large data sets to illuminate decision-making in families, businesses and government, guided by the belief that good policy depends upon credible evidence. Contributions of her research include identifying maternal health as a source of non-randomness in twin births, long term economic impacts of treatment for depression, conditions under which unemployment benefits can reduce domestic violence, understanding why women do not leave abusive partnerships, how firms respond to sexual harassment legislation, how barriers to opportunity cap long run returns to childhood investments, how improvements in child health liberate women into fulfilling work, how low cost sanitation and nutrition programmes in infancy can lower the risk of chronic disease, how to prospectively select good managers, and the substantive impacts of political representation. Sonia is Fellow of the Royal Economic Society, the UK Academy of Social Sciences, and the International Economic Association. She is Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies London, Centre for Economic Policy Research London, Rockwool Foundation Berlin and CESifo Munich, and Visiting Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She serves on the Council of the Royal Economic Society, and on their Standards of Conduct Committee; she is on the Women in Economics Committee of the European Economic Association, Associate Editor of the Economic Journal, and she acts on a number of advisory boards.
CCB 05-031, 5th Floor, 3600 Civic Center Blvd. (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Penn Medical Ethics
3600 Civic Center Blvd, 11-102AB (Hybrid)
Bronstein/Research Ethics & Policy Series (REPS): "Ethical Issues in Sociobehavioral Genomics Research" - Eric Turkheimer, PhD
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2026-10-06 12:00:00
2026-10-06 13:00:00
America/New_York
Bronstein/Research Ethics & Policy Series (REPS): "Ethical Issues in Sociobehavioral Genomics Research" - Eric Turkheimer, PhD
Eric Turkheimer, PhD
Hugh Scott Hamilton Professor of Psychology
University of Virginia
The Turkheimer lab studies how interactions between genes and environments shape the development of human behavior. We study many different aspects of behavior, but we are especially interested in issues involved in family life, including marriage, divorce and parenting. Other lines of research focus on the development of human intelligence and personality, particularly in the processes that lead siblings to become different from each other over time. We also study human personality in ways that don't explicitly include genetics. We are developing methods that allow richer and more individualized assessments of personality, and that control for the role played by self-esteem when people describe their own personality.
More detail to follow.
Registration required; Lunch provided
Streaming available via Zoom.
3600 Civic Center Blvd, 11-102AB (Hybrid)
Penn Medical Ethics
3600 Civic Center Blvd., 11-102AB (Hybrid)
Research Ethics & Policy Series (REPS): Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas / Kiran Musunuru
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2026-11-10 12:00:00
2026-11-10 13:00:00
America/New_York
Research Ethics & Policy Series (REPS): Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas / Kiran Musunuru
Individualized Genetic Interventions
Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas, MD, PhD
Associate Professor, Pediatrics (Human Genetics)
Director, Gene Therapy for Inherited Metabolic Disorders Frontier Program
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Kiran Musunuru, MD, PhD
Barry J. Gertz Professor for Translational Research
Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
More detail to follow.
Registration required; Lunch provided.
Streaming available via Zoom.
3600 Civic Center Blvd., 11-102AB (Hybrid)
Penn Medical Ethics
3600 Civic Center Blvd., 8-031 (Hybrid)
Research Ethics & Policy Series (REPS): Anne Cappola, MD, ScM
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2026-12-08 12:00:00
2026-12-08 13:00:00
America/New_York
Research Ethics & Policy Series (REPS): Anne Cappola, MD, ScM
Anne Cappola, MD, ScM
Professor of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism
Executive Director, Penn Medical Communication Research Institute (PMCRI)
Director of Clinical Research, Department of Medicine
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Cappola heads PMCRI, which advances medical and health communication research by hosting seminars and symposia on various topics in medical communication and facilitating and funding research in medical information delivery by interdisciplinary teams within Penn.
More detail to follow.
Registration required; Lunch provided.
Streaming available via Zoom.
3600 Civic Center Blvd., 8-031 (Hybrid)
Penn Medical Ethics