Renee McLeod-Sordjan, DNP
President
Renee McLeod-Sordjan, DNP, is Director of the Division of Medical Ethics for Northwell Health. The division develops ethics curricula for Hofstra University School of Medicine, Hofstra University School of Medicine, Northwell Health’s ethics fellowship, and interdisciplinary professionals within the academic practice partnership. Strategically focusing on the professional development of clinicians, the division fosters multiple areas of expertise, including clinical ethics consultation, education, scholarship, and engagement in interdisciplinary institutional service activities to improve patient experience, reduce clinician burnout and train the next generation of bioethicists. Dr. McLeod has more than 20 years’ experience as a board-certified family, palliative, and acute care nurse practitioner specializing in HIV, gynecology and critical care. As an educator, she has held a variety of academic administrative positions facilitating life-long learning among students with interests in ethical clinical practice.
Sean Valles, PhD
President Elect
Sean A. Valles is Associate Professor and Director of the Michigan State University Center for Bioethics and Social Justice. He is author of the 2018 book, Philosophy of Population Health: Philosophy for a New Public Health Era (Routledge Press; also published in Mandarin translation in 2022), and co-editor (with Quill R. Kukla) of the Oxford University Press book series, “Bioethics for Social Justice.” He is a philosopher of health, focusing on questions of how social context shapes health and, ethically, what should be done in response to that evidence. He has served in leadership capacities for a variety of professional societies, including: elected governing board member of the Philosophy of Science Association; member of the Organizing Committee of the Philosophy of Medicine Roundtable; member of the American Philosophical Association Committee on Public Philosophy; conference program co-chair of the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science.
Thomas Harter, Ph.D.
Secretary
Thomas (Tom) Harter, PhD, is the Director of the Department of Bioethics and Humanities at Emplify Health by Gundersen in La Crosse, WI. The department is responsible for providing ethics education programs and workshops for a variety of health professions audiences within Gundersen and with local health care employers, universities and schools of medicine and health. The bioethics department is also responsible for developing institutional policies and practices, staff education, and patient and community education with special focuses on advance care planning, treatment decision-making, and medico-industry relationships. Dr. Harter assisted with the ABPD statement on COVID-19, the COVID-19 vaccine mandate manuscript and policy, the salary survey committee, and co-chairs the clinical ethics SIG. He also served on the Wisconsin Department of Health Services COVID-19 vaccine allocation committee and is the co-editor of the forthcoming textbook published by Oxford University Press, Medical Professionalism: Theory, Education, and Practice.
Holly Tabor, Ph.D
Treasurer
Holly Tabor, PhD, is the Director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics. She is Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, and by Courtesy of Pediatrics and Epidemiology and Population Health. She is also Co-Chair of the Ethics Committees at Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. She is a globally recognized expert on the ethical issues surrounding health care and research for patients with disabilities, especially intellectual and developmental disability, and on the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) in genetics. Her research has shed light on the benefits and risks of participating in genomic research, particularly of rare and undiagnosed diseases. She is Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Bioethical Empirical Research.
Jennifer Kett, MD, MA
Member at Large
Jennifer Kett is the Division Head for Bioethics and Palliative Care in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She is also the Medical Director for Bioethics and Palliative Care at Seattle Children’s Hospital, and a PI in the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics and Palliative Care within Seattle Children’s Research Institute. Her scholarship focus is communication and medical decision making for children with critical or complex medical conditions. She has an adjunct faculty appointment in the UW School of Law where she co-teaches Medical Ethics and Jurisprudence.
Debra DeBruin, PhD
Member at Large
Debra DeBruin, PhD, is Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota. Center faculty produce research/scholarship, offer interdisciplinary bioethics courses, teach ethics in the curriculum of health professions programs, host widely-attended webinars on clinical ethics and on health equity, provide clinical ethics support for M Health Fairview system hospitals, and partner with the Minnesota Department of Health on matters of public health ethics. Dr. DeBruin primarily works on issues in public health ethics and the ethics of health policy, with a focus on concerns about health equity. Much of this work addresses issues of gender, race, and socioeconomic disadvantage. She also has done substantial work on public health emergency preparedness and response, led the development of Minnesota’s ethics framework for Crisis Standards of Care, co-led an ethics advisory group for the state during the COVID-19 pandemic, completed an after action project assessing Minnesota’s response to the pandemic, and continues to lead development of frameworks for ethical allocation of scarce resources including Carboplatin/Cisplatin, RhIG, sterile saline, Bicillin, and Ifosfamide. She currently serves as President of the Bioethics Network of the Upper Midwest.
Nada Gligorov, PhD
Member at Large
Nada Gligorov, PhD, is a John A. Balint Chair in Medical Ethics and Director of the Alden March Bioethics Institute at Albany Medical College. Dr. Gligorov received a PhD in Philosophy from the Graduate Center of The City University of New York. Prior to joining Albany Medical College, she was Associate Professor of Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Gligorov is the author of a monograph titled Neuroethics and the Scientific Revision of Common Sense (Studies in Brain and Mind, Springer, 2016). She is also the co-editor of the book The Human Microbiome: Ethical, Legal and Social Concerns (Oxford University Press, 2013). Dr. Gligorov has published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy, Erkenntnis, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, and The Monist. Her research focus is on whether brain death is biological death, the role of cognitive and emotional processes in pain perception, and the effects of neurotechnology on the self.
Jason Eberl, PhD
Past President
Jason Eberl, PhD, is Professor and Director of the Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics at Saint Louis University, which has seven full-time faculty members, a doctoral program, and undergraduate major and minor programs. Prior to this, he designed and delivered an integrated clinical ethics curriculum to medical students at the Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine, and began his career directing a Master’s program with concentrations in bioethics and international research ethics at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. His scholarly interests focus primarily on issues where questions of human personhood and identity come to the fore, such as human enhancement, and he recently published a book canvassing various theories of human nature and their bioethical implications. He also does a lot of work, though not exclusively, in the arena of Catholic bioethics.
