Campus & Community

Ethics Center’s 2007-08 fellows, senior scholar

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The Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics announced its Faculty Fellows in Ethics for 2007-08. Under the direction of Arthur Applbaum, professor of ethics and public policy, the fellows will spend the year participating in the center seminar and other activities, as well as pursuing their own research. Edward Hundert, senior lecturer on medical ethics in the Department of Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, will join the fellows as senior scholar for the year.

In addition, six Harvard graduate students have been named Edmond J. Safra Graduate Fellows in Ethics. These fellowships are awarded to outstanding students who are writing dissertations on topics relevant to practical ethics. Graduate fellows devote their time to an approved course of study in practical ethics and participate in a weekly ethics seminar, which discusses research problems and strategies common to the study of ethics.

The Faculty Fellows in Ethics are as follows:

Daniel Baer is a project leader in the Washington, D.C., office of the Boston Consulting Group, a strategic management consulting firm. He holds degrees from Harvard in social studies and African-American studies and was a Marshall Scholar at Oxford, where he received a D.Phil. in international relations. Baer will focus on the connections between the ethics of war and the ethics of business.

Eric Gregory is assistant professor of religion at Princeton University. He holds an M.Phil. in theology from Oxford and a Ph.D. in religious studies from Yale. His interests include religious and philosophical ethics, theology, political theory, bioethics, and the role of religion in public life. He will examine secular and religious perspectives on global justice in light of the interpretive history of the Good Samaritan parable.

Karen Naimer teaches public international law at New York University’s (NYU) Center for Global Affairs. She holds an LL.M. from NYU, and a J.D. and M.A. in international relations from the University of Toronto. She focuses on international criminal law, human rights and humanitarian law, and anti-corruption. Her work will include the ethical issues relating to private military and security contractors operating in fragile or failed states, and ways to hold them accountable under international and domestic law.

Nien-hê Hsieh is associate professor in the legal studies and business ethics department at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard and an M.Phil. in politics from Oxford. His research is in ethics and economics. Hsieh will investigate the responsibilities of global business to persons in developing economies, especially with respect to justice, beneficence, and exploitation.

Ryan Preston is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His research and teaching include moral philosophy, philosophy of religion, and medical ethics. He holds a Ph.D. from NYU. Preston will focus on the conditions under which people’s rights may be permissibly infringed.

Alice Ristroph is associate professor of law at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law. She holds a Ph.D. in political theory from Harvard and a J.D. from Harvard Law School (HLS). Her interests include contemporary penal practices, violence, political authority, and other topics in criminal law, constitutional law, and political theory. She will write about the use of law to regulate physical violence by private and public actors.

The Edmond J. Safra Graduate Fellows in Ethics are as follows:

Angus Burgin is a Ph.D. candidate in history focusing on transatlantic intellectual history since the late 19th century. He is exploring the intellectual foundations of modern conservative political thought, especially the early membership of the Mont Pèlerin Society and their perceptions of the relationship between established social norms and the competitive marketplace.

Ben Hurlbut is a Ph.D. candidate in the history of science. He is interested in the history of the life sciences, biotechnology, and bioethics. His dissertation examines the history of the debates surrounding human embryo research in the United States from the mid-1970s to the present. Hurlbut holds an A.B. in classics from Stanford University.

Kristi A. Olson is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy. Her research interests lie in the intersection of political philosophy and public policy, with particular emphasis on distributive justice. She holds a J.D. with honors from Duke Law School and a B.A. with high honors in music and geography from Indiana University. She has been a staff attorney at a national public interest law firm.

S. Andrew Schroeder is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy. In his work he argues that evaluative concepts, like “good” and “better,” are independent of deontic ones, like “obliged” and “forbidden.” He is interested in teaching moral philosophy and bringing philosophical ethics to a wider audience. He holds a B.A. in philosophy summa cum laude from Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., and has been head teaching fellow for Michael Sandel’s “Justice” course.

Lucas Stanczyk is a Ph.D. student in government interested in contemporary political philosophy and the history of modern political thought. He is examining whether there are principles of justice for individuals that are independent of the principles that apply to institutions. He holds degrees in law and civil law from McGill University and was a teaching fellow for courses in political philosophy, political theory of international relations, legal theory, and the history of political thought.

Katharine G. Young is an S.J.D. candidate at HLS. She is examining the relationship between constitutionalism and distributive justice. She holds an LL.M. from HLS and an LL.B. with honors from the University of Melbourne, where she also majored in German and political science. Young has been a fellow of the Project on Justice, Welfare and Economics at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and a Byse Fellow at the Law School.

Established in 1986, the Safra Foundation Center for Ethics is one of the University’s interfaculty initiatives under the auspices of the Provost’s Office. It encourages teaching and research about ethical issues in public life and the professions.