Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby, PhD

I am the Cullen Professor of Medical Ethics and Associate Director of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. I received my Ph.D. in Philosophy, with a specialization in Ethics (moral psychology, action theory, and bioethics), from Michigan State University in 2008. My dissertation examined ambivalence and its implications for autonomy and agency—questions that continue to shape my work.

My research sits at the intersection of philosophy, behavioral economics, and medicine, and focuses on the ethical dimensions of human judgment and decision-making. I study how cognitive biases, weakness of will, and ambivalence challenge traditional accounts of autonomy and rationality, and I examine the ethical implications of using behavioral insights to influence decisions. This includes foundational questions about manipulation—what it is, when it occurs, and whether it can ever be ethically justified or even desirable. I develop and test these ideas in applied clinical contexts, particularly in high-stakes medical decision-making. My book, Good Ethics and Bad Choices: The Relevance of Behavioral Economics for Medical Ethics (MIT Press), develops this framework.

I also work in neuroethics and AI ethics, with a focus on emerging technologies in neuroscience and medicine, including neural devices, decision-making in first-in-human trials, and the ethical design and governance of AI systems. Across these areas, my work combines philosophical analysis with empirical and translational research.

I have served as Principal Investigator on multiple major federal and foundation-funded projects. My research has been supported by four awards from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) focused on improving decision-making in advanced heart failure, an AHRQ-funded study on the clinical use of AI-based risk prediction for LVAD therapy, and two R01 grants from the NIH BRAIN Initiative on neural device ethics and decision-making. I am also a recipient of a Greenwall Faculty Scholars Award in Bioethics and a Pfizer Bioethics Fellowship. Across these projects, I lead interdisciplinary teams working at the intersection of ethics, clinical care, and health policy.

I have published more than 150 articles in bioethics, philosophy, and medical journals, and my work has been supported by PCORI, the NIH BRAIN Initiative, AHRQ, and The Greenwall Foundation. In 2023, I was elected a Hastings Center Fellow.

I serve as Associate Editor for both The American Journal of Bioethics and the Journal of Medical Ethics, and sit on the editorial boards of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Biomedical Ethics Series Editor) and JME Practical Bioethics. I previously served on the Board of Directors of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) and on the American Philosophical Association Committee on Philosophy of Medicine. I co-founded the ASBH Medical Decision Making Affinity Group.

I am also the founder of the Philosophical Bioethics Consortium, an international collaboration with colleagues including Julian Savulescu (Oxford/Singapore), Daniel Sulmasy (Georgetown), and Matthew Liao (NYU), aimed at advancing cross-disciplinary work in bioethics (see: www.philosophicalbioethics.com). In addition, I serve on the Expert Advisory Board for ANTITHESES (Wellcome Discovery Research Platform) and collaborate on the Center for Humanities-based Health AI Innovation (CHHAIN), funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.