Steering Committee

Kathryn M. Porter, JD, MPH is a Research Scientist for the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. She serves as Director of the Research Bioethics Consult Service for the Institute of Translational Health Sciences. She is the Co-Chair for the CREC Collaborative and the Chair of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities’ Clinical Research Ethics Consultation Affinity Group. Her interests include research ethics, the informed consent process, and the ethical and legal issues related to genetics.

Holly A. Taylor, MPH, PhD is Research Bioethicist in the Department of Bioethics, Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health (NIH). She will be an attending faculty member of the Clinical Center Bioethics Consultation Service. Prior to her move to the NIH she directed the Research Ethics Consulting Service at Johns Hopkins University, serving faculty in the Schools of Public Health, Medicine, and Nursing. Dr. Taylor has expertise in public health research, researchers’ obligation to their research subjects, informed consent, recruitment into clinical trials, research oversight, and has experience with quantitative and qualitative research methodology.

Mildred Cho, PhD is Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University, Associate Director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, and Director of the Center for Integration of Research on Genetics and Ethics (an NIH-supported Center for Excellence in Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Research). She is also Director of Stanford’s Benchside Ethics Consultation Service. Dr. Cho’s major areas of interest are the ethical and social impacts of genetic research and its applications, and how conflicts of interest affect the conduct of academic biomedical research. Her current research projects examine ethical and social issues in research on prenatal genetic testing, the human microbiome, and synthetic biology, and the ethics of clinical and translational research.

Liza-Marie Johnson, MD, MPH, MSB is a pediatric oncology hospitalist and bioethicist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. She is Chair of the Hospital Ethics Committee and a member of the St. Jude Institutional Review Board. Dr. Johnson conducts clinical and research ethics consultations at St. Jude and is actively engaged in clinical research. Her research interests are focused in pediatric ethics as well as quality-­‐of-­‐life concerns in the context of pediatric cancer. Dr. Johnson is particularly interested in improving communication and decision-­‐making in the context of early phase clinical research trials or in research involving advanced genomic sequencing technologies.

Benjamin S. Wilfond, MD is Professor and Chief of the Division of Bioethics in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Director of the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. Dr. Wilfond is the Chief of the Bioethics Consultation Service and a pediatric pulmonologist at Seattle Children’s Hospital. He serves as a consultant for the Research Bioethics Consult Service for the Institute of Translational Health Sciences.
Dr. Wilfond is the former chair of the intramural NHGRI IRB and has 25 years of experience on IRBs and DMCs. His current scholarship focuses on ethical and policy issues related to genetic testing, pediatrics, and clinical research.

Devan Duenas, MA is a Research Associate at the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. He currently serves as the Managing Editor for the Challenging Cases in Research Ethics series in the American Journal of Bioethics, as well as the Coordinator for Clinical Research Ethics Consultation Collaborative (CRECC). His research interests include the attitudes, perceptions, and decision-making processes of research participants and the ethical issues related to data and privacy.