Biography
Dr. Mary Simmerling is Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics. She received her Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Illinois, and completed a two-year Fellowship at the University of Chicago's MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. Dr. Simmerling held a faculty appointment in Transplantation Ethics in the University of Chicago’s Department of Surgery from 2005-2007.
Dr. Simmerling's research focuses on medical and research ethics, with an emphasis on issues related to justice and human rights. She has published more than 20 articles, chapters, reviews, and commentaries, and given more than 50 presentations, on topics including conflicts of interest and research integrity, clinical medical ethics, international ethics, and human trafficking. Dr. Simmerling is an expert in human organ transplantation ethics, a field in which she has published extensively, and worked at the international level. She has worked with the Ministry of Health of China in their efforts to regulate organ transplantation and abolish organ trafficking. In 2007, she gave the keynote address on ethics at the International Organ Transplantation Forum in Beijing, China. Dr. Simmerling is actively involved in international efforts to effect policy changes in human rights and research ethics, including through her work with the anti-trafficking project in the Initiative to End Slavery at the Massachusetts General Hospital's Division of Global Health and Human Rights, and the Fogarty-funded Middle Eastern Research Ethics Training Initiative.
