Emily Largent appointed next Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics

The Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy is thrilled to announce that Emily Largent, JD, PhD, RN has been appointed as the next Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics, effective July 1. Dr. Largent is an outstanding lawyer-bioethicist who is an internationally recognized expert on the ethics and regulation of human subjects research and on the legal and ethical issues related to aging, particularly as they touch on Alzheimer’s Disease and related disorders. She has published and presented extensively on these topics, is the recipient of a career development award and an R01 from the National Institute on Aging as well as a Faculty Scholar Award from the Greenwall Foundation, has served as a member of numerous NIH Special Emphasis Panels, and has been recognized by prestigious national awards including being named as a Fellow of The Hastings Center and receiving the Baruch A. Brody Memorial Award from the Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University.

After doing her undergraduate degree at Georgetown, Dr. Largent received an RN from Penn and worked for 2 years as a cardiac intensive care nurse at UCLA. She then undertook a predoctoral fellowship at the NIH Clinical Center Department of Bioethics, after which she entered the joint JD/Health Policy (Ethics) PhD program at Harvard. Upon graduating in 2016, she clerked for Judge Jeffrey R. Howard of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, after which we were fortunate to recruit her to PSOM & MEHP in 2017. In recognition of her outstanding accomplishments, she was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure, effective this July.

The Department looks forward to continuing and expanding its tradition of excellence in bioethics teaching and research under Dr. Largent’s leadership.