Speaker Biographies

(Updated December 2013)

DAN BROCK
Frances Glessner Lee Professor of Medical Ethics, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Dan Brock is the Frances Glessner Lee Professor of Medical Ethics in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Brock’s contribution span the entire field of bioethics. In recent years, his research has focused on ethical issues in health resource prioritization, with a special focus on cost-effectiveness analysis.

GLENN COHEN
Professor of Law; Co-Director, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics

Glenn Cohen works at the intersection of bioethics and the law, as well as in health law. His current projects relate to reproduction/reproductive technology, research ethics, rationing in law and medicine, health policy, and medical tourism. The author of more than 50 articles and chapters, his award-winning work appears in leading legal (including the Stanford, Cornell, and Southern California Law Reviews), medical (including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA), bioethics (including the American Journal of Bioethics, the Hastings Center Report), and public health (the American Journal of Public Health) journals, as well as Op-Eds in the New York Times and Washington Post.

NIR EYAL
Associate Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine (Medical Ethics), Harvard Medical School

Nir Eyal is Associate Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine (Medical Ethics) at Harvard Medical School. He specializes in medical and public health ethics. Eyal chairs the Committee on Philosophy and Medicine of the American Philosophical Association. He co-edits the Oxford University Press series “Population-Level Bioethics.”

ARCHON FUNG
The Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Fung’s research examines the impacts of civic participation, public deliberation, and transparency upon governance. His five books include Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency (Cambridge University Press, with Mary Graham and David Weil) and Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy (Princeton University Press).

ERIC GASTFRIEND
Chair of Effective Philanthropy, Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Club

Eric Gastfriend is a first-year MBA student at Harvard Business School, and Chair of Effective Philanthropy for its Social Enterprise Club. Eric has worked on tech start-ups and volunteers for 80,000 Hours, an organization that advises people on how to make the most impact on world problems with their careers.

NICOLE HASSOUN
Associate Professor, Binghamton University

Nicole Hassoun is Associate Professor at Binghamton University and leads Academics Stand Against Poverty’s Global Health Impact project. She has held visiting positions at United Nation’s World Institute for Development Economics Research in Finland, the Center for Poverty Research in Austria, and the Center for Advanced Studies in Frankfurt. Her book Globalization and Global Justice was published by Cambridge University Press in 2012.

LISA HIRSCHHORN
Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine; Director, International Monitoring and Evaluation, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Director, M and E and Quality, Partners in Health; Implementation Scientist, Ariadne Labs

Lisa Hirschhorn, MD, MPH, is Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Director for M and E and Quality Partners in Health, and Implementation Scientist at the Ariadne Labs. Dr. Hirschhorn is an Infectious Disease physician who has been working in providing and ensuring care for people living with HIV/AIDS for over 25 years. She is focused on studying effective approaches and building capacity to measure and improve quality and implementation internationally across areas of care including HIV maternal and child health and chronic diseases in Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia. Her main research in on understanding factors associated with gaps in quality and the impact of newer approaches to M and E and quality improvement in ensuring equity and effectiveness.

AIDAN HOLLIS
Professor of Economics, University of Calgary; Vice President, Incentives for Global Health

Aidan Hollis is Professor of Economics at the University of Calgary and the Vice President of Incentives for Global Health. He studied at Cambridge and the University of Toronto. His research focuses on innovation and competition in pharmaceutical markets, though he has published widely in economics. In 2003-4 he served as the T.D. MacDonald Chair in Industrial Economics at the Competition Bureau. He has provided expert reports and testimony in a variety of pharmaceutical-related cases in Federal, Appeals, and Supreme Court cases in Canada, and has advised companies and governments.

WAHEED HUSSAIN
Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and Business, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Faculty Fellow, University Center for Human Values, Princeton University

Waheed Hussain is an Assistant Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests lie at the intersection of business, economics, and political philosophy. For the academic year 2013-14 he is a Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Faculty Fellow at Princeton University, where he is writing a book about the political dimensions of corporate governance.

NIEN-HÊ HSIEH
Associate Professor of Business Administration; Marvin Bower Fellow, Harvard 
Business School

Nien-hê Hsieh is Associate Professor of Business Administration and the Marvin Bower Fellow at Harvard Business School. He writes and teaches about ethical challenges in business and the responsibilities of global business leaders. His current work focuses on appropriate responses from business when legal standards or public institutions are weak, incomplete, or contested. He joins the faculty from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

LAWRENCE LESSIG
Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership, Harvard Law School; Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University

Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Lessig serves on the Board of Creative Commons, MapLight, Brave New Film Foundation, The American Academy, Berlin, AXA Research Fund and iCommons.org, and on the advisory board of the Sunlight Foundation. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation’s Freedom Award, Fastcase 50 Award and being named one of Scientific American’s Top 50 Visionaries.

STEVE LYDENBERG
Founding Director, Initiative for Responsible Investment, Hauser Institute for Civil Society, Harvard Kennedy School

Steve Lydenberg is Founding Director of the Initiative for Responsible Investment, author of several books on responsible investment including Dilemmas in Responsible Investment with Céline Louche, and numerous articles on the subject including “On Materiality and Sustainability: The Value of Disclosure in the Capital Markets” and “Reason, Rationality, and Fiduciary Duty.”

SUNITA SAH
Assistant Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy, Georgetown University; Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow

Dr. Sunita Sah is Professor of Strategy, Economic, Ethics, and Public Policy at Georgetown University and is also an Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow. She conducts research in organizational corruption, transparency, improving decisions, influence and advice. She holds a PhD in Organizational Behavior from Carnegie Mellon University, an MBA (with Distinction) from London Business School, an MBChB (MD) in Medicine and Surgery, and a BSc (Hons) in Psychology from the University of Edinburgh, UK. Prior to academia, Dr. Sah worked for the UK’s National Health Service as a physician, IMS Health Consulting as European Marketing Director, and Organisational Dynamics Ltd.as Managing Director (CEO).

KAROLINA MACIAG
MD/PhD candidate, Department of Immunology, Harvard-MIT-HST; Member, Board of Directors, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM)

Karolina Maciag graduated from Harvard College in 2004 with a research focus on computational biology. As an MD/PhD student, she studies innate immunity to intracellular bacteria. She has volunteered with UAEM for seven years as a member of the Harvard and MIT chapters, the international Coordinating Committee, and now the North American Board of Directors.

JONATHAN H. MARKS
Director, Bioethics Program, Penn State

Jonathan Marks is director of the Bioethics Program at Penn State, and a network fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.  His research explores the systemic ethical implications of public-private partnerships, food industry sponsorship of nutrition research, and industry participation in policymaking related to public health.

JENNIFER MILLER
Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow, Harvard University; President, Bioethics International

Jennifer E. Miller, PhD is a fellow in the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University and President of Bioethics International. She has taught in Columbia University’s Bioethics Program and in Fordham University’s Graduate School of Business. She’s served on the US Taskforce on Pediatric Emergency Mass Critical Care under the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (2009 to 2011), tasked with developing an ethical framework  for responsible medical resource allocation, as a consultant to the United Nations ECOSOC (organ facilitating international cooperation on standards-making and problem-solving in economic and social issues) and on the AMA’s National Disaster Life Support Education Consortium. Her expertise has been featured on Fox News, CBS News, AP News and the cover of Science Magazine’s Career section. She has authored numerous articles, appearing in Nature Medicine and the Hastings Center Report, on a wide range of bioethical issues—including on the role of religion in public bioethics, personalized medicine, triage ethics, corruption, the ethics of clinical trials, and the role of markets in healthcare.  Her current work explores the ethical challenges of the pharmaceutical industry. She is piloting a rating system that she developed to assess and signal the completeness and reliability of public information available for newly approved drugs.

SUERIE MOON
Co-Chair and Research Director, Forum on Global Governance for Health, Harvard Global Health Institute; Lecturer, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health

Dr. Suerie Moon is Co-Chair and Research Director for the Forum on Global Governance for Health at the Harvard Global Health Institute. She is also a Lecturer for the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her work focuses on the intersection of global governance and public health. Her recent research has examined the trade and investment regimes, intellectual property rules, policies to enhance innovation and access to medicines in low- and middle-income countries, global health financing, and the functioning of the global system.

GLAUDINE MTSHALI
Executive Director, Harvard Global Health Institute

Dr. Mtshali is a medical doctor and diplomat with over 35 years’ experience in multidisciplinary settings. Her focus has included health care improvement in resource-poor countries and issues related to health service delivery, national health program and policy development, international health partnership building, and promoting health and human rights at international levels. She has served as South Africa’s Ambassador to the United Nations Office and International Organizations in Geneva, South Africa’s Health Envoy to the governments of the USA, Canada, and Brazil, as a Consul-General based in Los Angeles, and as Director of Clinical Risk Management at the Harvard Community Health Plan in Boston. Dr Mtshali received a medical degree (MBBCh) and a law degree (LLB) from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and an MBA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

DAVID PORITZ
President & Co-Founder, Equitable Origin

David Poritz is the President and Co-Founder of Equitable Origin, and he is the custodian of its vision and responsible for leading outreach and engagement to key global stakeholders. David graduated from Brown University and holds a Masters degree in Public Policy in Latin America from Oxford University where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

RESHMA RAMACHANDRAN
MD/MPP candidate, Brown Medical School and Harvard Kennedy School; AMSA PharmaFree Chair

Reshma Ramachandran is a student at Brown Medical School and Harvard Kennedy School. Since she started medical school, she has been actively involved in AMSA’s PharmFree Campaign campaign, which champions evidence-based rather than marketing-based education and prescribing as well as access to affordable, truly innovative treatment. Last year, she worked full-time as the PharmFree Fellow in Washington, D.C. and currently serves as PharmFree Chair.

JOSEPH ROSS
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine

Joseph S. Ross, MD, MHS, is an Assistant Professor in the Section of General Internal Medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, CT, and a member of the Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation at the Yale-New Haven Hospital. He is an expert at performance measure development and on the translation of clinical research into practice, using health policy research methods to examine the use and delivery of higher quality care and to better understand issues related to pharmaceutical and medical device evidence development and post-market surveillance.

JOHN RUGGIE
Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government and an Affiliated Professorin International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School

John Ruggie is the Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government and an Affiliated Professor in International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. From 1997-2001, he served as United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Planning. In 2005, he was appointed as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Business and Human Rights and in 2011 the UN Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed a set of Principles on Business and Human Rights which he developed. Their core elements were since then adopted by the OECD, ISO, IFC and EU.

JOSHUA SALOMON
Professor of Global Health, Harvard School of Public Health

Joshua Salomon is Professor of Global Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. His research focuses on priority-setting in public health, including measurement of population health; modeling and forecasting major causes of mortality and morbidity; and evaluation of public health policies and interventions. He has authored numerous articles, chapters, and books relating to health metrics, burden of disease, and cost-effectiveness analysis. Dr. Salomon received his PhD in health policy and decision sciences from Harvard University.

PAUL C. STERN
Scholar, Board on Environmental Change and Society, National Research Council

Paul C. Stern is a scholar with the Board on Environmental Change and Society of the NRC. His research interests include understanding environmentally significant behavior of households, institutions for managing common-pool resources and risks, and the science of human-environment interactions. His academic training is in social psychology.

JOHN STURM
Co-President of Harvard Effective Altruism

John Sturm is a junior at Harvard College. He serves as co-president of Harvard Effective Altruism, a student organization interested in applying evidence and reason towards doing good in the world. John studies physics and math, and also takes a keen interest in ethics and meta-ethics.

ROBERT TRUOG
Professor of Medical Ethics, Anesthesiology, and Pediatrics; Director of Clinical Ethics, Harvard Medical School; Senior Associate in Critical Care Medicine, Children’s Hospital Boston; Executive Director, Institute for Professionalism and Ethical Practice

Robert D. Truog, MD, is Professor of Medical Ethics, Anesthesia, and Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, where he is also Director of Clinical Ethics. He practices pediatric critical care medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he also serves as Executive Director of the Institute for Professionalism and Ethical Practice.

DAVID VOGEL
Professor, Haas School of Business; Professor, Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

David Vogel is a Professor at the Haas School of Business and in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His recent research has focused on health, safety, and environmental regulation in the US and Europe, as well as global corporate responsibility. His books include The Politics of Precaution: Regulating Health, Safety, and Environmental Risks in Europe and the United States and The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility.

DAN WIKLER
Mary B. Saltonstall Professor of Population Ethics and Professor of Ethics and Population Health, Harvard School of Public Health

Dan Wikler is Mary B. Saltonstall Professor of Population Ethics and Professor of Ethics and Population Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. His current research interests are ethical issues in population and international health, including the allocation of health resources, health research involving human subjects, and ethical dilemmas arising in public health practice. He served as the first Staff Ethicist for the World Health Organization and was co-founder and second president of the International Association of Bioethics.

PAULA WILSON
President and CEO, Joint Commission Resources and Joint Commission International

Paula Wilson is President and Chief Executive Officer of Joint Commission Resources (JCR) and Joint Commission International (JCI), not-for-profit organizations working to improve health care, quality, and patient safety. JCI is leading health care improvement worldwide through its development of international standards for quality and safety and international patient safety goals, and by offering domestic and international consulting, international accreditation, education, publications, Continuous Service Readiness, and e-Learning. Ms. Wilson has more than 30 years of experience in the health care industry.