Paul Wolpe
Ph.D
IL, USPaul Root Wolpe, Ph.D. is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Bioethics, Raymond Schinazi Distinguished Research Professor of Jewish Bioethics, Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Neuroscience and Biological Behavior, and Sociology, and the Director of the Center for Ethics at Emory University. Dr. Wolpe also serves as the Senior Bioethicist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), where he is responsible for formulating policy on bioethical issues and safeguarding research subjects.He is Co-Editor of theAmerican Journal of Bioethics (AJOB), the premier scholarly journal in bioethics, and Editor-in-Chief ofAJOB-Neuroscience, and sits on the editorial boards of over a dozen professional journals in medicine and ethics. Dr. Wolpe is a past President of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, a Fellow of the Hastings Center, and a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the country's oldest medical society.
Dr. Wolpe is the author of over 125 articles, editorials, and book chapters in sociology, medicine, and bioethics, and has contributed to a variety of encyclopedias on bioethical issues. A futurist interested in social dynamics, Dr. Wolpe's work focuses on the social, religious, ethical, and ideological impact of technology on the human condition.
Considered one of the founders of the field of neuroethics, which examines the ethical implications of neuroscience, he also writes about other emerging technologies, such as genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and prosthetics. His teaching and publications range across multiple fields of bioethics and sociology, including death and dying, genetics and eugenics, sexuality and gender, mental health and illness, alternative medicine, and bioethics in extreme environments such as space. He is the author of the textbookSexuality and Gender in Society, and edited and is a key author of the end-of-life guideBehoref Hayamim: In the Winter of Life.
Dr. Wolpe sits on a number of national and international non-profit organizational boards and working groups, and is a consultant to academic institutions and the biomedical industry. In July, 2010, he testified to the President's Commission on the Study of Bioethical Issues in Washington, DC on ethical issues in synthetic biology. A dynamic and popular speaker internationally, Dr. Wolpe has been chosen by The Teaching Company as a "Superstar Teacher of America" and his courses are distributed internationally on audio and videotape. He won the 2011 World Technology Network Award in Ethics, has recorded a TED Talk, and was profiled in the November, 2011 Atlantic Magazine as a "Brave Thinker of 2011." Dr. Wolpe is a frequent contributor and commentator in both the broadcast and print media, recently featured on 60 Minutes and with a personal profile in the Science Times of the New York Times.
Paul Root Wolpe, Ph.D. is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Bioethics, Raymond Schinazi Distinguished Research Professor of Jewish Bioethics, Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Neuroscience and Biological Behavior, and Sociology, and the Director of the Center for Ethics at Emory University. Dr. Wolpe also serves as the Senior Bioethicist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), where he is responsible for formulating policy on bioethical issues and safeguarding research subjects.He is Co-Editor of theAmerican Journal of Bioethics (AJOB), the premier scholarly journal in bioethics, and Editor-in-Chief ofAJOB-Neuroscience, and sits on the editorial boards of over a dozen professional journals in medicine and ethics. Dr. Wolpe is a past President of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, a Fellow of the Hastings Center, and a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the country's oldest medical society.
Dr. Wolpe is the author of over 125 articles, editorials, and book chapters in sociology, medicine, and bioethics, and has contributed to a variety of encyclopedias on bioethical issues. A futurist interested in social dynamics, Dr. Wolpe's work focuses on the social, religious, ethical, and ideological impact of technology on the human condition.
Considered one of the founders of the field of neuroethics, which examines the ethical implications of neuroscience, he also writes about other emerging technologies, such as genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and prosthetics. His teaching and publications range across multiple fields of bioethics and sociology, including death and dying, genetics and eugenics, sexuality and gender, mental health and illness, alternative medicine, and bioethics in extreme environments such as space. He is the author of the textbookSexuality and Gender in Society, and edited and is a key author of the end-of-life guideBehoref Hayamim: In the Winter of Life.
Dr. Wolpe sits on a number of national and international non-profit organizational boards and working groups, and is a consultant to academic institutions and the biomedical industry. In July, 2010, he testified to the President's Commission on the Study of Bioethical Issues in Washington, DC on ethical issues in synthetic biology. A dynamic and popular speaker internationally, Dr. Wolpe has been chosen by The Teaching Company as a "Superstar Teacher of America" and his courses are distributed internationally on audio and videotape. He won the 2011 World Technology Network Award in Ethics, has recorded a TED Talk, and was profiled in the November, 2011 Atlantic Magazine as a "Brave Thinker of 2011." Dr. Wolpe is a frequent contributor and commentator in both the broadcast and print media, recently featured on 60 Minutes and with a personal profile in the Science Times of the New York Times.
Boomers and Biotech: How the Needs of America’s Biggest Cohort Drive Biotechnology
The 78 million Boomers are now between 45 and 60 years old, and they aren't getting younger. The history of the United States over the last half century has been, to a large extent, driven by the needs of the Boomers: Rock-and-roll took over when they were teenagers; politics changed when they protested the war and began to vote; business changed when they began to move up the management chain the 80s; and daycare, flex time, and baby products transformed when they began to have children....
Re-Creation: The Biotechnological Restructuring of Life
The convergence of a variety of technologies - synthetic biology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, neurotechnology, and informational and computational technology - is already changing the way we diagnose and cure disease, reproduce, and enhance ourselves. As the biotechnology industries are developing astonishing new products, they their potential to infringe on people's privacy and bodily integrity, and to change "human nature," is raising troubling questions. In this talk, we look...
From Generation to Generation: Ethical Issues in Legacy Giving, EOL Planning, and Philanthropy
The transfer of wealth is the transfer of power; that is, through charitable giving and inheritance we transfer monetary power from one person to another, or one generation to another. By doing so, moreover, we express our values - what is important to us, what kinds of lives and works we want to support. Whnever values and power are expressed, ethical conundrums arise. In this talk, we use case examples, including the interesting case of the Barnes Foundation in Merion, PA, to...
Building Better Brains: How Neuroscience is Altering Human Functioning
With the advent of implantable brain chips, neural tissue transplants, brain-computer interfaces, and psychopharmaceutical advances, human beings will soon be able to micromanage their moods, enhance cognitive and affective skills and traits, "mind-read" through brain scanning, and replace brain functions with brain prosthetics. While millions have been spent exploring genetic enhancements, far less attention has been placed on brain enhancement, which has more immediate and perhaps...
Ethical Leadership: Modeling Behavior with Integrity
A recent poll of top executives by the American Management Association asked, "What characteristics and skills are needed to be an effective leader today?" The number one answer was "Ethical Behavior." Leadership is not only about inspiring, motivating, and taking responsibility for decisions. It is also about being modeling behavior in an organization. Ethical Leadership is a way of making decisions with integrity that reverberates throughout an organization.
Borrowing Our Bodies: The Vexing Ethics of Human Medical Research
Human Medical Research has more institutionalized protections than virtually any other pursuit in the United States, and yet it is still periodically rocked by scandals, the suspension of research at some of our finest medical institutions, and reports of the deaths or exploitation of subjects who have volunteered their bodies to the scientific enterprise. Is the system really broken? Drawing from his experience doing Human Subjects Protections Audits at a number of Universities, Private...
