Paul Kelleher, associate professor of medical history and bioethics, was recently elected a fellow of the Hastings Center, a national bioethics research institute.
Kelleher, who also holds an appointment in the department of philosophy, studies ethical and philosophical aspects of public policy, especially health and environmental policy. His published work explores issues concerning public health ethics, health and distributive justice, priority-setting and health care rationing and the economics of climate change.
He is currently writing a book on the ethics and economics of pricing carbon dioxide emissions in United States regulatory and environmental policy.
Hastings Center Fellows are a group of individuals of outstanding accomplishment whose work has informed scholarship and public understanding of complex ethical issues in health, health care, life sciences research and the environment, according to the center’s award announcement.
The Hastings Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit bioethics research institution based in Garrison, N.Y., was founded in 1969. The center addresses fundamental ethical and social issues in health care, science and technology, according to its website.
Kelleher becomes one of about 300 Hastings Center fellows from around the world. Elected by the Hastings Center Fellows Council, fellows can be academic bioethicists, scholars from other disciplines, scientists, journalists, lawyers, novelists, artists or highly accomplished individuals from other spheres, the center’s website states.
Kelleher joins three other current UW–Madison educators who are already Hastings Center Fellows, including Dr. Norman Fost, emeritus professor of pediatrics and bioethics; Alta Charo, law and bioethics professor; and Susan Lederer, chair of the medical history and bioethics department.
“This recognition from the Hastings Center is a sign of professor Kelleher’s growing prominence in the field of bioethics,” Lederer said. “The Hastings Center is, of course, the oldest and best-known bioethics institute, and with several current and former medical history and bioethics faculty already fellows it’s a sign of our department’s presence in the field.”
