Visiting Scholars

The Center is delighted to welcome scholars who wish to interact with the Center researchers and with others in the Stanford community. Such interchanges are mutually beneficial and enrich the collegial atmosphere. However, the resources at hand to support such visits are limited. Consequently, preference is given to scholars who wish to carry out longer visits and who therefore can develop working collaborations. Ideally, visiting scholars will be able to defray costs associated with their visit, such as computer support, office assistance, and telephone charges.

To be appointed as a Visiting Scholar, you must meet the following criteria: (1) be a recognized expert in your field; (2) have a doctoral degree; and (3) have an affiliation with an outside institution or organization. Visiting Scholar appointments are usually made for one year. Visiting Scholars are not employees of the University and the title may not be used for personnel or payroll purposes. Visiting Scholars may not receive regular compensation from the University. Application for Visiting Scholar status must include proof of funds in an amount equivalent to or greater than the current first-year postdoctoral stipend.

Potential visiting scholars should contact the Center via email for further information.



Past Visiting Scholars

Nate W. Olson, PhD, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Associate Director of the Kegley Institute of Ethics at California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB). During his time as a visiting scholar at SCBE, he worked on research around inequities in health care research in rural areas. His past research included work on ancillary care in research ethics and family-centered care in clinical ethics. Before joining CSUB, he was a Thinking Matters teaching fellow at Stanford. 

John Paris, S.J., Ph.D., (2006, 2019) is the Michael P. Walsh Professor of Bioethics at Boston College.   He is also Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health at Tufts Medical School and Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Dr. Haidan Chen is currently a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, working on the project “Governing Precision Medicine: The Comparative Politics of Genetic Testing in China and the United States”. She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, China Agricultural University (CAU), Beijing. She gained her Ph.D in the Philosophy of Science and Technology at Zhejiang University. Before joining CAU, she was Research Fellow in the Science, Technology, and Society Research Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (NUS), and a Fellow at Tembusu College, NUS. Haidan Chen is interested in the ethical, legal, and social implications of genetics and genomics. Her current research relates to the governance of biomedical research in China, in particular stem cell translational research, biobanks, and precision medicine.

Daniel Laforest, Ph.D.
, is Associate Professor at the University of Alberta where he teaches Quebec and Canadian literatures, as well as French literature, cultural studies and critical theory. His research examines the notion of responsibility in Canadian and US literatures as regards to life narratives and the interaction between daily life and the expectations of the public regarding the health care system, particularly as situated in urban/suburban spaces. He has published several articles, in French and English, on the postwar transformations of the land (cities, suburbs, countryside) and the middle-classes in Canadian literature. His book L’archipel de Caïn: Pierre Perrault et l’écriture du territoire (Montreal, XYZ) was awarded the 2011 Jean-Éthier Blais prize for best essay on Quebec literature. He has been Fulbright fellow at the Centre for Cultural Studies of the University of California Santa Cruz and guest professor on the Research Chair in Canadian Studies of the Université de Limoges, in France. He serves as associate editor for the academic journal Canadian Literature, and was interim director of the Canadian Literature Centre at the University of Alberta in 2012-2013.

Lee ChangWoo, Ph.D. is an associate professor, department of Pediatrics, Wonkwang University Hospital in Iksan, South Korea. He is a child neurologist and manages student training and clinical performance in his hospital. His research interests include ‘Gender difference in specialty preference and mismatch in medicine.’ His primary concerns are some structural and cultural changes by the increasing number of female doctors. His research would contribute in understanding new generation of medical doctors and improving their quality of life.

Joanna H. Fanos, Ph.D. is Research Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Dartmouth Medical School. She has worked as a research psychologist focusing on the impact of pediatric illness on the family, especially the well sibling. She has documented the long-term psychosocial effects of growing up with and possibly surviving an affected sibling in such disorders as cystic fibrosis, ataxia-telangiectasia, X-linked severe combined immune deficiency, pediatric HIV, Familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. Her research led to her founding and directing a Sibling Center in the Department of Pediatrics at California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco, a preventive clinical program to help children and adolescents with an ill sibling.

Susan Leigh Star, Ph.D., B.A., was a Senior Scholar and and Visiting Professor of Computer Engineering at Santa Clara University. She was formerly Professor of Communication at UCSD and Professor of Information Science at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Her research at Stanford, with Niranjan Karnik, is a historical-contemporary study of electro-shock therapy, following the trajectory of the technology as well as patient's experience and navigation through the medical treatments and their integration into daily life.

Shinmi Kim, Ph.D. (2005), was a Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics. Dr. Kim is Assistant Professor with the Department of Nursing, Woosuk University in Korea. Her research interests include end of life care.

Mary Mahowald, Ph.D. (2003-2004), was Visiting Professor Emerita at the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics. She is a philosopher and Professor Emerita in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, and the Committee on Genetics at the University of Chicago.

Azumi Tsuge, Ph.D. (2003-2004), was a Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics as well as the Institution for Research on Women Studies and Gender. She is a Medical Anthropologist and Professor at the Department of Sociology, Meijigakuin University, Tokyo. Her primary research interest is the analysis of socio-cultural factors on the decision-making process of patients assessed by interview and observation methods.