Penn Bioethics Seminar Series (PBS): Mahlet N. Mesfin, PhD

Bioethics beyond the bench: Issues at the forefront of science and global affairs

Mahlet N. Mesfin, PhD | Visiting scholar, Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement 

Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/98636135175

Description: The 21st century has been referred to as the century of biology, and the transformational insights spurred by basic research and the development of advanced tools and capabilities have revived and raised new debates related to the codes of conduct and norms around biomedical research. Issues related to bioethics that previously have been reserved for discussion within the science and science policy community are increasingly being debated by the foreign policy and national security communities with renewed interest because of their implications for economics, security, and human rights.  To navigate these times, policymakers should leverage the biomedical research community’s shared interest and ability to work together, while the biomedical research community should understand the broader landscape and dynamics that will have a direct impact on the work in their labs and the halls of academia. This talk will focus on the trends in life sciences and biomedical research that are being followed in the broad policy community, the ways in which issues related to bioethics intersect with global affairs, and the potential for using bioethics as a means to open channels of communication and collaboration in the current era of great power competition.

Bio: Mahlet Mesfin is a visiting scholar at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.  Most recently, she was the director of the Center for Science Diplomacy at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). From 2014-2017, Mesfin served in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), most recently as the Assistant Director for International Science and Technology (S&T). There, she led and advised on the strategic planning, coordination, and execution of the S&T-focused engagements under the responsibility of the U.S. President’s Science Advisor, and championed S&T as an element of the broader U.S. government’s foreign policy agenda.

She received a Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a M.S.E. in biomedical engineering and B.S.E. in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan, and she is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.