Our Board

Ana Borovecki MD, PhD, was born in Zagreb in 1973, where she finished the Classical Gymnasium. In 1998 she graduated in medicine from the School of Medicine, University of Zagreb. In 2000 she got a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and comparative literature from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. In 2004 she got a European Master of Bioethics degree from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. In 2007 she got a PhD degree from Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. She is a specialist in clinical pharmacology and toxicology and a master of Public Health. She is deputy director to the program director of the PhD Program in Biomedicine and Health Sciences at the School of Medicine, University of Zagreb. She works at Andrija Stampar, School of Public Health, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, as an assistant professor. Her field of research is biomedical ethics.

Ignaas Devisch (1970), PhD, is a senior professor in Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine. He holds a position at Ghent University, Department of Public Health and Family Medicine, and is chairman of the research group PME (Phil of Medicine and Ethics) at Ghent University. He was a researcher for five years at the Radboud University Nijmegen. He publishes in the fields of medical philosophy, philosophy and ethics. He organised the ESPMH conference in 2015 in Ghent and has been a member of the ESPMH board since 2016. His research focuses mainly on autonomy, lifestyle and responsibility in healthcare. On a regular basis, he intervenes in public debates on issues regarding philosophy of medicine or social philosophy. He is the author of more than twenty books and hundreds of papers and articles. He is also a member of the Advisory Council of Bioethics in Belgium and of numerous international academic networks. For all information, see here.

Péter Kakuk studied Philosophy at the University of Debrecen and Healthcare Ethics and Law at the University of Manchester, School of Law’s Centre of Social Ethics and Policy. He developed and taught a variety of courses in bioethics, healthcare ethics and law at the Department of Behavioural Sciences of the University of Debrecen, where he received his Ph.D. in Health Sciences and later a habilitation on Research Ethics and Integrity. Péter is currently working in the Budapest campus of Central European University. He is a senior researcher at the Center for Ethics and Law in Biomedicine. He worked at the Health Ethics and Governance Unit of the World Health Organization and for the European Commission. His major research interests are in the fields of research ethics and integrity, biopolitics and bioethics, and behavioural ethics. He has participated in various European projects and conducted several studies on RRI, research ethics and integrity.

Bert Gordijn is professor and director of the Institute of Ethics at Dublin City University in Ireland. He has studied Philosophy and History in Utrecht, Strasbourg and Freiburg in Breisgau. In 1995 he was awarded a doctorate in Philosophy from the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, followed by a doctorate in Bioethics from the Radboud University Nijmegen in 2003. Bert has been a visiting professor at Lancaster University (UK), Georgetown University (USA), the National University of Singapore and the Fondation Brocher (Switzerland). He has served on advisory panels and expert committees of the European Chemical Industry Council, the European Patent Organisation, the Irish Department of Health, and UNESCO. Bert is Editor-in-Chief of two book series, “The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology” and “Advances in Global Bioethics”, as well as a peer-reviewed journal, “Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy“, all published by Springer. He is Secretary of the European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Healthcare as well as President-Elect of the International Association of Education in Ethics.

Cristina Richie, PhD, is a lecturer in the Philosophy and Ethics of Technology department at the Delft University of Technology and was the School of Social and Political Science Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, in 2020. Richie was previously an assistant professor in the Bioethics and Interdisciplinary Studies Department at the Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University (Greenville, NC). She has also taught at King’s College London, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and Tufts University. In 2019, she was a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her research is dedicated to just, sustainable health care, often from feminist, queer, or theological perspectives. In addition to her monographs, Principles of Green Bioethics: Sustainability in Health Care (Michigan State University Press, 2019) and Environmental Ethics and Medical Reproduction (Oxford University Press, forthcoming), Dr Richie is the author of over fifty articles in journals such as The Lancet, the American Journal of Bioethics, the Journal of Medical Ethics, and the Hastings Center Report. In addition to being the joint editor of Global Bioethics, she is also the head of the Netherlands Unit (Rotterdam) of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and holds a nominated fellowship at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity at Trinity International University (Deerfield, IL).

Luciana Caenazzo is an associate professor in Legal Medicine Dept. of the Department of Cardiac, Thoracic, Vascular Sciences and Public Health at the University of Padua (Italy). Since 2002, she has taught Legal Medicine and Bioethics to pre- and postgraduate medical and law students at the University of Padua. She is vice-president of the healthcare ethics committee at USL 6 Padova (Italy). She is vice-director of the medical graduate school in forensics of the University of Padua. Her research regards aspects of personal identification in the paternity analysis and biological stains by means of the study of DNA genetic markers in the forensic field (Forensic Genetics) and for clinical purposes regarding the follow-up in the patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation. Her interests of research also comprise ethical questions of genetics, forensic genetics and justice; another main research interest lies in the ethical aspects of the clinical use of genetics (ethical issues arising in their day-to-day practice and sharing good practice) and the applied and fundamental aspects of new technologies. In the last years, she also focused on ethical and legal aspects of governance in biobanks. Luciana is an associate professor in Legal Medicine at the Dept. of Molecular Medicine of the University of Padua (Italy). She holds a graduate degree in Medical Genetics from the University of Padua, and she was awarded a PhD in Forensic Sciences at the Catholic University of Rome and, at the same university, a master’s in Ethical Consultation. Since 2002, she has been in charge of pre- and postgraduate teaching of Legal Medicine and Bioethics to medical healthcare professionals and law students at the University of Padua. She is a member of the scientific committee of Fondazione Lanza, Padova (Italy), and in the last two years, a member of the Fondazione Lanza project “Ethics and Emerging Technologies: a population-based Health Monitoring Project. The areas of her recent professional interests include ethical aspects of clinical genetics, forensic genetics and justice administration, gender medicine and ethical perspectives regarding new technologies and big data management. She has published about 80 papers and edited several collaborative books in the areas of forensic sciences, bioethics and clinical ethics.

Frida Simonstein is a visiting scholar at the School of Public Health of Ben-Gurion University in Israel. She holds an MSMedSci in Human Genetics from the Sackler Medical School at Tel Aviv University in Israel (1994) and was awarded a PhD in Health Care Ethics and Law from the Centre of Social Ethics and Policy at the University of Manchester (UK). Frida has been a visiting professor at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany; the Hastings Center in the USA; the Institute for Medicine, Law and Bioethics at Liverpool University (UK); Queen Mary University of London (UK); and the World Health Organization in Geneva. She has served on the Stirring Panel on the Ethics of Human Genetics at the International Center for Health Law and Ethics of Haifa University in Israel. She has published a book entitled ‘The Ethics of Self-Evolution’ (Yozmot, 2004) and edited a collaborative volume entitled ‘Reprogenetics and the Future of Gender’ (Springer, 2009). She has published several dozen papers in the areas of human genetics, reproduction and novel technologies, some of which have been published in the journal Fertility & Sterility and the Journal of Genetic Counselling. She organized the 2012 conference of the ESPMH in Nazareth. Presently, Frida is a member of the Centre of Health, Humanism and Society at Ben Gurion University. She is writing a new volume entitled ‘Womb Politics’. In addition, she is leading a research project to validate Self-Expression through Typing (SETT), a method aiming at the development of communication skills of thoughts and ideas among non-verbal autistics in Israel.

Eugenijus Gefenas is a professor and the director of the Centre for Health Ethics, Law, and History at the Medical Faculty of Vilnius University. He co-directed the NIH Fogarty International Center-funded training program “Advanced Certificate in Research Ethics in Central and Eastern Europe” and served as a visiting associate professor of Bioethics at Union Graduate College – Mount Sinai School of Medicine Bioethics Program in the USA from 2005 to 2018. His recent academic activities include projects related to research integrity and ethical issues during crises, research involving new technologies, biobanking, and the ethical and legal implications of changing regulatory regimes for clinical drug trials and health data research. Additionally, E. Gefenas was a member of the Council of Europe Committee on Bioethics (DH-BIO) from 2002 to 2018, chairing the committee from 2011 to 2012. He served as president of the Intergovernmental Bioethics Committee (IGBC) of UNESCO from 2015 to 2017 and was a member of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE) from 2016 to 2021. In 2021, he was elected chair of the European Network of Research Ethics Committees (EUREC), and in 2025, he was elected to the Executive Committee of CIOMS. The list of his publications is available here. 

Joanna Rozynska holds academic degrees in philosophy (Ph.D. and M.A.), law (MJur), sociology (M.A.), and bioethics (M.S.). She also holds academic certificates in American law, the psychology of conflict, mediation and negotiation, and an advanced certificate in research ethics. Since 2010, she has worked as an assistant professor at the University of Warsaw’s Faculty of Philosophy (Department of Ethics and Center for Bioethics & Biolaw). From 2007 to 2017, she was a senior faculty member of the Advanced Certificate Program in Research Ethics, funded by the NIH Fogarty International Center, USA. She is the director of the Master Programme in Bioethics offered by the University of Warsaw’s Faculty of Philosophy (since 2020). She is also the chairperson of the Bioethics Committee at the Polish Academy of Sciences (since 2019), the vice chairperson of the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee (since 2023; membership since 2018), and a member of the WHO Research Ethics Review Committee (since 2022). She is a member of the National Transplantation Council and the Ethics Committee of this Council. Additionally, she serves on two institutional research ethics committees in Poland and on the compassionate-use advisory committee at the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU. Joanna Rozynska’s research focuses on the ethics of biomedical research involving humans and reproductive ethics. She is the author and co-editor of numerous publications on bioethics and biomedical law, including the following books: “Ethical Consultations in Clinical Practice” (ed. 2023, in Polish); “Bioethics” (co-edited with W. Chanska 2013, in Polish); “Biomedical Research Involving Human Participants: International Standards” (co-edited with M. Waligora, 2012, in Polish); “From Zygote to Person: Potentiality, Identity, and Termination of Pregnancy” (2008, in Polish); and “Informed Consent to Participate in Medical Research. A Guide for Researchers” (co-authored with M. Czarkowski, 2008, in Polish). Her work has been published in the American Journal of Bioethics, Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, Bioethics, Journal of Medical Ethics, Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, HEC Forum, and others. 

Shlomit Zuckerman received a BSc in Biology (Cum Laude) and an LLB in Law from Hebrew U. in Jerusalem (1993), and an MA and a PhD in Empirical Bioethics from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, US (2008). Teaching-wise, from 2009 until the present, she has been teaching ethics, law, policy, and disaster management in health care for graduate students at Hebrew U. and Tel Aviv U. Faculties of Medicine and Haifa U. School of Law. As for supervision, since 2021 she has been mentoring Israeli and international graduate students in theses, research workshops and final projects. In terms of academic positions, from 2012 to 2016, she served as a substitute management committee member at the Disaster Bioethics COST project of the EU and served as a member of its Research Ethics Committee. In 2018, she was appointed Deputy Academic Director of the new Center for Bioethics and Law at TAU Faculty of Medicine. She is a member of Reswell Multinational Resilience & Well-being Research Collaboration at Tel Aviv University and was recently appointed as an MC Member at COST Action CA23103 Blue Rights – Human rights at sea and a member of the Working Group Human Rights and Health in Conflict and Crisis. As a full-time medical risk manager in a governmental insurance company, Shlomit has provided ethics, legal and risk management counselling to Israeli Ministry of Health Committees since 2015. Finally, her research interests include medical ethics education, clinical ethics, public health ethics and policymaking, and ethics and law in disaster and emergency settings. She has authored and co-authored papers in peer-reviewed journals and books on the topics of Military Medical Ethics, Humanitarian Ethics and Ethics of Pandemics. Shlomit has a long-lasting relationship with the ESPMH. Since 2012 she has been presenting her research projects at the society’s annual conferences and working with ESPMH colleagues on joint research papers. She recently coauthored a book chapter on Covid vaccine policy in Israel and Brazil and is currently working on a joint paper on the topic of Physician Assisted Death in different countries, which stems from a panel presented at the ESPMH 2023 annual conference. 

Stephan Sahm studied medicine and philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. Since 1985, he has qualified in internal medicine, gastroenterology and palliative medicine. Until summer 2024, he was Head of the Gastrointestinal Tumour Center, Head of the Palliative Care Unit, and Medical Director of the Ketteler Hospital, a non-profit clinic. The Ketteler Hospital in Offenbach is an academic teaching hospital of the Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Medical School. In addition to his clinical work, Stephan has pursued an academic career in the field of medical ethics. He publishes in German and English-language journals on medical ethics, is the author of relevant books and book contributions on medical and bioethics and co-editor of the Zeitschrift für medizinische Ethik (in German). He habilitated in medical ethics at the Goethe-University, Frankfurt, and teaches at the university’s Institute for History and Ethics. His research interests include medical treatment at the end of life and the risks and opportunities of genetic and molecular medicine. Stephan is a member of several ethics committees, including those for hospital chains, and plays a key role in drafting statements on fundamental medical ethics issues. In addition to his academic and clinical work, he is active as a journalist and participates in public debates on medical and bioethical issues in Germany, not least as a permanent contributor to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the leading daily newspaper in Germany. He has been invited several times as an expert at hearings of the German Parliament on legislation in the field of medical ethics, e.g., at the hearings on the legal regulation of assisted suicide.