Center Leadership

Holly Tabor, PhD, is the Director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics. She is Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, and by Courtesy of Pediatrics and Epidemiology and Population Health. She is also Co-Chair of the Ethics Committees at Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. She is a globally recognized expert on the ethical issues surrounding health care and research for patients with disabilities, especially intellectual and developmental disability, and on the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) in genetics. Her research has shed light on the benefits and risks of participating in genomic research, particularly of rare and undiagnosed diseases. She is Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Bioethical Empirical Research. 

Krysta Barton, PhD, MPH, is an experienced interdisciplinary research professional, skilled in qualitative research design, implementation, and analysis. She has been working as a qualitative researcher for fifteen years. Her most recent roles were as Principal Qualitative Researcher in Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Analytics Research (BEAR) at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and as the Associate Director of Qualitative Research for the Palliative Care and Resilience Research (PCAR) Program. She received an MPH in Health Education and Behavioral Science from Rutgers University and a PhD in Public Health Genetics from the University of Washington.

Alyssa Burgart, MD, MA is Associate Director of Pediatrics at the Center and is also a Pediatric Anesthesiologist and Bioethicist. She earned her bachelors degree in Bioethics from the University of Judaism and her Masters in Bioethics and Health Policy from Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics at Loyola University Chicago. She co-chairs the Ethics Committee at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. Her areas of interest include pediatric bioethics, research on the practice of medicine, end-of-life conversations, and ethics in organ transplantation.

Mildred Cho, PhD, Associate Director of Research at the Center is also Professor of Pediatrics. Her major areas of interest are the ethical and social issues raised by new technologies such as genetic testing, gene therapy, and artificial intelligence. She also studies how biomedical researchers can be encouraged to integrate ethical issues into their work.

Henry Greely, JD, Chair of SCBE's Steering Committee, is Professor of Law and Professor, by courtesy, of Genetics at Stanford University. Specializing in health law and policy, Greely has written on cloning, the implications of genetics for the health care system, health care insurance and financing and the stem cell debate.

Kate Luenprakansit, MD is Associate Director of Clinical Ethics and is also a Surgical Co-Management Hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine and Clinical Ethics consultant. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of California, Los Angeles in Molecular, Cell, Developmental Biology with a minor in Public Policy and received her medical degree from Oregon Health and Science University. She was also a MacLean Clinical Medical Ethics Fellow at the University of Chicago. She is currently a member of Stanford's Ethics Committee and serves as an ethics consultant.

David Magnus, PhD,  is Director Emeritus of the Center, and is Thomas A. Raffin Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Ethics, and Professor of Pediatrics, Medicine, and by Courtesy of Bioengineering and Associate Dean of Research at Stanford University. He is a member of the Stanford Hospital and Clinics Ethics Committee, is past President of the Association of Bioethics Program Directors, and is the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Bioethics. He is currently the Vice-Chair of the IRB for the NIH Precision Medicine Initiative (“All of Us”).

Thomas A. Raffin, MD, Co-Founder and Director Emeritus of the Center, is Colleen and Robert Haas Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Bioethics and former Chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. In addition to biomedical ethics (withholding and withdrawing life support, medical decision-making in the context of managed care and HMOs, ethics of neurosciences, and ethical issues in human genetics), Dr. Raffin's other key areas of academic interest include the biology of acute lung injury, pulmonary fibrosis, and lymphangioleiomyomatosis.