MBE/MSME Alumni Colloquium 2024-25
Upcoming Talk | Future Talks | Past Talks
Upcoming talk
Wednesday, February 12, 2024 Kayte Spector-Bagdady, JD, MBE
Assessing the value of patient data: A qualitative exploration of hospital/industry data partnerships
BIO: Kayte Spector-Bagdady is health law and bioethics faculty at the University of Michigan Medical School where she also co-leads the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine. She is an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Bioethics and is on the new National Academies’ Congressionally-mandated committee on newborn screening. She is the current PI of $3M in NIH funding towards improving the governance of research and AI/ML use of health data, and her recent articles have been published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Science, and JAMA among others. Prof. Spector is a former practicing FDA law attorney; Associate Director for President Obama’s Bioethics Commission; and Chair of the American Heart Association’s Committee on data collection, sharing, and use. She graduated with a JD and MBe from the University of Pennsylvania.
Registration link coming soon! (Please note: the Zoom session will open at 5:00 PM, but the talk will not begin until 5:15 PM. Attendees will be in a waiting room until the talk starts.)
Future Talks
Thursday, March 20, 2024 Takunda Matose, PhD, MBE
Justice and The Monty Hall Problem of Public Health
BIO: Takunda Matose is a philosopher and bioethicist who is a Research Assistant Professor at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center's Ethics Center. His research lies primarily at the intersection of political philosophy, bioethics, and the philosophy of race. He is interested in racial health justice and has written about the racial dimension of pandemics, maternal health disparities, health care in carceral contexts, and public health in Africa.
Tuesday, April 29, 2024 Jessica Mozersky, PhD, MBE
No good can come of this knowledge: Why healthy older adults decline to learn their risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease Dementia
BIO: Jessica Mozersky is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Washington University’s Bioethics Research Center and a Faculty Scholar at the Institute for Public Health. Dr. Mozersky conducts empirical research on the ethical and social implications of new biomedical and genomic technologies. Dr. Mozersky completed her PhD in Anthropology within the Institute for Human Genetics and Health at University College London, UK. She holds a Master’s degree in Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Mozersky received 4 years of postdoctoral training in bioethics and the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of genetics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Past Talks
Monday, November 18, 2024 Benjamin Barsky, JD, MBE
Emerging Bioethical Issues in Carceral Health Care and Policy
BIO: Benjamin A. Barsky is fellow at the Harvard Law School Project on Disability and the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics. This summer, he will join the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco as an Associate Professor of Law. Ben’s research intersects health and criminal law, behavioral health policy, and disability rights. His work is or has been supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Institute of Mental Health. He received his J.D. and Master of Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania and B.A. in Public Health Studies and Psychological & Brain Sciences from Johns Hopkins University.
Monday, October 14, 2024 Yash Joshi, MD, PhD, MBE
Psychoses, Psychotropics, and the Paradoxes of Psychiatric Decision Making
BIO: Yash Joshi is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at University of California, San Diego. He is an Associate Residency Training Director of Psychiatry and Medical Director of Intensive Community Mental Health Recovery Services in the VA San Diego Healthcare System, caring for patients living with treatment refractory serious mental illness (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder etc.). His research focuses on anticholinergic medication burden and outcomes in psychotic disorders, and pharmacological augmentation of cognitive training.
Monday, September 30, 2024 Marilyn Baffoe-Bonnie, PhD, MBE
Ethical Considerations in Sickle Cell Precision Medicine
BIO: Marilyn Baffoe-Bonnie is a Provost Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of History and Sociology of Science. Her research lies at the intersections of science, technology, and society and examines the social and ethical dimensions of emerging biotechnologies. Marilyn completed a PhD in Sociology from Rutgers University and a Predoctoral Fellowship in the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center Department of Bioethics and the National Human Genome Research Institute Health Disparities Unit in the Social and Behavioral Research Branch. She completed her Master of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and Bachelors of Science from Haverford College.
Thursday, April 11, 2024 Gabriel Lazaro-Munoz, JD, PhD, MBE
Selecting Our Children's Genes: The Emergence of Polygenic Embryo Screening
BIO: Gabriel Lázaro-Muñoz, PhD, JD is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry in the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School and the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Lázaro-Muñoz combines his background in neuroscience, law, and bioethics to examine the implications of emerging biomedical technologies in neuroscience and genomics. He is principal investigator of studies funded by the BRAIN Initiative-National Institutes of Health, the National Human Genome Research Institute and the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Lázaro-Muñoz’s current studies examine ethical and social implications of the integration of psychiatric genomics into clinical care, polygenic embryo screening, and the development of neurotechnologies such as adaptive deep brain stimulation systems. Dr. Lázaro-Muñoz received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from New York University; his J.D. and Master of Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania; and his BA in Psychology from the University of Puerto Rico.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024 Wynne Morrison, MD, MBE
Examining Ethics through Poetry
BIO: Wynne Morrison, MD MBE is a physician practicing pediatric critical care and palliative care at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she directs the Pediatric Advanced Care (palliative care) team. She is a Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches in the medical school professionalism and ethics curriculum. Her scholarly work is in the areas of pediatric ethics, end-of-life care, the medical humanities and patient-family-physician communication.
Wednesday, February 21, 2024 Michael DiStefano, PhD, MBE
Determining the Starting Point for Medicare Drug Price Negotiations
BIO: Michael DiStefano is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. His research is primarily focused on health technology assessment and priority-setting, prescription drug policy, and direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising. He is particularly interested in the ethical considerations that arise in each of these areas. Michael completed a Master's in Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in 2014 and a PhD in Bioethics and Health Policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2021. He has also taught biomedical ethics at Dong-a University in Busan, South Korea.
Monday, November 13, 2023 Matthew Drago, MD, MBE
Imperiled Newborns: Converging Ethical Perspectives
BIO: Matthew Drago, MD, MBE, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Director of Neonatal Ethics and Palliative care in the Division of Newborn Medicine in the Jack and Lucy Department of Pediatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine and Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital. Dr. Drago earned his medical degree and masters of bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania and went on to complete his Pediatric residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Neonatology fellowship at Columbia University in New York. His research lies in bioethics, specifically in studying ethical challenges of caring for infants with life limiting conditions, infants born at the border of viability, and infants born to incarcerated mothers.
Monday, October 23, 2023 Jonathan Kole, MD, MBE
App Based Mental Health: A View from an MBE Psychiatrist Accidentally in Industry Click here to register for this talk! (Registration Link Coming Soon)
BIO: Jon Kole is a husband, Dad to 3, adult and child psychiatrist and Medical Director of Headspace Health. He provides direct tele-psychiatric care to adult and child patients across the United States. He is also on Brown's faculty as Assistant Professor and the Director of Ethics Education at the medical school. He completed Triple Board training (pediatrics/adult psychiatry/child psychiatry) at Brown and is board-certified in all three. He loved his Medical School and Bioethics training at Penn and currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA. He is most passionate about improving access to mental health services via scalable, sustainable high quality care models that bring out the best in providers and patients alike.
Monday, September 18, 2023 Grace Lee-Riddle, MD, MBE
Challenges in Second Opinions for Patients in Urgent Need of Liver Transplantation Biomedical Research Building, Room 251 421 Curie Blvd, Philadelphia, PA
BIO: Grace S. Lee-Riddle, MD, MSME is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery at Rutgers, New Jersey Medical School. She graduated from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. She completed her residency in general surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where she also completed a Fellowship in Advanced Biomedical Ethics and obtained a Master of Science in Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. She subsequently completed her fellowship in Multi-Organ Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia University and Weill Cornell Medical Centers. Dr. Lee-Riddle's clinical interests include liver transplantation, kidney transplantation, and hepatobiliary surgery. Dr. Lee-Riddle's academic interests include transplant ethics and policy, clinical outcomes, and surgical education.
Thursday, May 11, 2023 Wynne Morrison, MD, MBE
Graduation Commencement Colloquium
BIO: Wynne Morrison, MD, MBE, is the director of the Justin Michael Ingerman Center for Palliative Care and associate chief for Faculty Affairs in the Division of Critical Care at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
Wednesday, April 5, 2023 Nadia N. Sawicki , JD, MBE (MBE 2004) "Professional Ethics in OB/GYN Care in the Post-Dobbs Era"
BIO: Nadia N. Sawicki is a Georgia Reithal Professor of Law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Co-Director of Loyola's Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy. Prof. Sawicki's research addresses issues at the intersection of torts, health law, and bioethics, including issues related to informed consent, health care conscience laws, reproductive justice, end-of-life care, and professional licensure and discipline. In 2020, Prof. Sawicki was elected as a member of the American Law Institute. She has previously served as a member of the American Bar Association’s Special Committee on Bioethics and the Law, and co-chair of the American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities’ Law Affinity Group.
Tuesday, March 14, 2023 Jason L. Schwartz, PhD, MSW, MBE (MBE 2012) "The Ethical Challenges Of Involuntary Outpaitent Treatment"
BIO: Jonathan Lukens received his MSW, MBE, and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Lukens is an associate professor of social work at Salem State University where he teaches classes in health and mental health policy, social welfare policy, research methods, and ethics. In addition, he has served as a consultant for several ethics and human rights boards and serves as a permanent member of the ethics board for Chelsea Jewish Lifecare. In the fall of 2022, Dr. Lukens will assume the role of vice president of Lifebridge, a housing and behavioral health provider serving Boston’s North Shore and Cape Ann.
Thursday, February 23, 2023 Jason L. Schwartz, PhD, MBE (MBE 2006) "COVID-19 Vaccine Policy-Making—Evidence, Values, and Expert Advice"
BIO: Jason L. Schwartz is an Associate Professor of Health Policy and the History of Medicine at the Yale School of Public Health. His research examines vaccines and vaccination policy, decision-making in medical regulation and public health, and the structure and function of scientific expert advice to government. His publications have appeared in NEJM, JAMA, AJPH, Health Affairs, and elsewhere. Previously, he was the Harold T. Shapiro Fellow in Bioethics at Princeton University and a staff member for President Barack Obama's Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. He is a graduate of Princeton University, where he received an A.B. in classics, and the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a Ph.D. in the history and sociology of science and a master's degree (MBE) in bioethics.
Monday, November 14, 2022 Jolion McGreevy, MD, MBE, MPH (MBE 2011) "The Capacity Problem: At the Intersection of Ethics and Health Care Operations"
BIO: Jolion McGreevy, MD, MBE, MPH, is Vice Chair & Vice President of Clinical Operations in the Department of Emergency Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, New York. He is Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine. He is Vice Chair of the Mount Sinai Hospital Ethics Committee and Chair of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Ethics Committee. He has taught bioethics courses in the Harvard Medical School Master of Bioethics Program and the Boston University Department of Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Bioinformatics. Dr. McGreevy graduated from Jefferson Medical College and completed his Master of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and his Master of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. He was a National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholar. He completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at Boston Medical Center/Boston University School of Medicine.
Monday, October 17, 2022 Elliott M Weiss, MD, MSME (MSME 2016) "Who Participates in Neonatal Research?--Past, Present, and Future"
BIO: Elliott M Weiss, MD, MSME is Associate Professor in the Division of Neonatology at the University of Washington and faculty at the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle Children’s Hospital. He attends in the neonatal intensive care unit and on the ethics consult service. He completed fellowships in Neonatology and Advanced Biomedical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also received a Master of Science in Medical Ethics. His two major areas of scholarship are: 1) clinical decision-making, including models of shared decision-making, decision-making in times of uncertainty, communication, and considering the chronically critically ill; and, 2) recruitment for clinical research, including improving recruitment processes, learning from the experience of research staff, and decreasing disparities in clinical trial participation. He is currently on the second year of his K23 through NICHD “Improving Diversity in Neonatal Clinical Trial Enrollment” which aims to better describe how parents make enrollment decisions and create and pilot test a modified recruitment approach designed to improve the recruitment process and to increase participation of under-represented populations in neonatal research.
Monday, September 19, 2022, BRB 251, 5:15-6:30pm Kavita Shah Arora, MD, MBE (MBE 2009) "Reconceptualizing Informed Consent for Gynecologic Surgery"
BIO: Dr. Kavita Shah Arora is a tenured Associate Professor and the Division Director for General Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Dr. Arora received her BS with a minor in Philosophy from the Pennsylvania State University. In 2009, she graduated with both an MD from Jefferson Medical College and a Master's Degree in Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania. She completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University. She subsequently completed a Master's in Science of Clinical Research at Case Western Reserve University. She currently serves as the Greenwall Fellow in Bioethics for the National Academy of Medicine and is Chair of the national ethics committee of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists,She has served on the national ethics committee of the American Medical Association, on the Board of Directors of the American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities, and on the Governing Council for the Young Physicians Section of the American Medical Association.