The conduct of scientific research with humans and animals is governed by complex and comprehensive research oversight regulations.  Despite this robust oversight structure, ethical issues that require investigation, reflection, and adjudication frequently emerge, and ethical guidance is needed to maintain an ethically healthy and vibrant research portfolio.  Research ethics consultation services have emerged as a key element of research infrastructure and support at academic institutions and these models have been highly successful in providing expert guidance to research teams.  Even beyond the areas of human and animal research, ethical issues often arise in other types of scientific research.  Ethical questions include defining the societal responsibilities of researchers, determinations of fairness in research collaborations and consortia, ethical use of new technologies, such as the responsible use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in research activities, and challenges in navigating research priorities in complex situations such as public health emergencies and disasters.

Bioethics projects in our institute encompass a range of activities.  Research projects include work on our research ethics consultation service, including conducting outreach, tracking tools, and evaluation strategy for research ethics consultations; developing and evaluating novel practical tools and strategies to assist researchers with ethical challenges in their work; conducting empirical studies using qualitative and quantitative measures of research participants’ experience in clinical trials and other studies; performing assessments of the effectiveness of specific ethical guidelines for enrollment of military service members in studies; developing, implementing, and evaluating ethical guidance for specific challenges in human and animal research that are not explicitly addressed in regulations; researching and preparing peer-reviewed publications on critical bioethics areas essential to our research mission.

key words

Bioethics; qualitative research; survey research; conceptual scholarship; policy development

Citizenship:  Open to U.S. citizens, permanent residents and non-U.S. citizens

Level:  Open to Postdoctoral and Senior applicants