Testimonials

As these comments from Program graduates indicate, the Master of Arts Program in Bioethics contributes to the intellectual development of students with diverse career goals.


“The best part of the MA program has been the one-on-one mentorship and support from faculty, in particular, Dr. Lisa Parker.  She is especially supportive of my work, and has consistently identified new opportunities for me to present, publish, and collaborate across disciplines. I’ve successfully been able to integrate my varied interests, as well as my dual enrollment in the doctoral program in Nursing and the MA program in Bioethics.”

Lauren Matukaitis Broyles, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Health Services Research Center for Health Equity Research & Promotion (CHERP)
VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System


“Many of today’s major ethical dilemmas pertain to bioethics. It was intellectually very stimulating and enjoyable to be able to spend a whole year immersed in these important issues. The program provided me with a good mix of philosophical foundation and contemporary dilemmas, while allowing for my own ethical innovation in topics of my choosing. My bioethics masters made it possible for me to pursue further graduate studies because I was able to secure a research position in Bioengineering Ethics.”

Angela Fortunato, MA, MPH
Oakcrest School Science Department
Vienna, VA


“I enrolled in the MA Program in order to incorporate graduate level ethics training into my doctoral education in nursing. As an MA student, I was continually challenged to rigorously analyze issues and perspectives that I had not previously considered. I now routinely explore ethical dimensions of current issues in dementia care and research. As a result of the MA experience, I have been able to translate a vague interest in bioethics into a focused line of inquiry that directly influences my research, teaching, and career development.”

Jennifer Hagerty Lingler, MA, PhD
Associate Professor in the University of Pittsburgh Schools of Nursing (Department of Health and Community Systems) and Medicine (Psychiatry)


“The clinical practica were among the best educational experiences of my life. I highly recommend this program and several years post-graduation, still regard it as highly worth my investment.”

Lisa Keränen, MA. PhD
Department Chair & Associate Professor of Communications at the University of Colorado Denver
Author of Scientific Characters: Rhetoric, Politics, and Trust in Breast Cancer Research


“The MA program is carefully organized and highly attentive to the needs and interests of students. Seminars and lectures consist of engaging, relevant and challenging dialogue. True to its founding mission, the Pitt Bioethics program effectively and meaningfully assembles perspectives from various disciplines.”

Angela J. Kornman, MA
Dean of College and Academic Advising at All Saints' Episcopal School
Fort Worth, Texas


“I practice as a health care lawyer, but am fortune to sit on five different hospital ethics committees. In this role, my experience in the MA Program has been very valuable. In particular, the summer practicum in the hospitals enabled me to understand better the provider side of various issues.”

Nathan A. Kottkamp, MA, JD
Associate, McGuireWoods
Richmond, VA


“For lawyers who want to deal with the hard issues of health policy that must be solved for this country to move forward as a just society, the traditional law school education provides only part of the training that is needed. The University of Pittsburgh Master's program in bioethics has provided me an important part of what is missing.”

Jason W. Manne, MA, JD, MHA, MBA
Senior Attorney, Pennsylvania Department of Welfare


“Bioethics is the discussion infiltrating all fields that have a direct influence over human liberty and dignity. While I was studying for my MA in Bioethics I examined the health care system in courses with a wide variety of perspectives: philosophy, law, history, women’s studies, medicine, public health and the patient’s viewpoint. The MA in Bioethics will prepare you to take part in the discussion and focus your vision for representing and aiding the people you serve in your professional life. I manage a county public health program that serves women who are pregnant and suffer from addiction to any substance. Bioethics guides every practical decision made in my program because liberty and dignity are precisely what mothers who have such overwhelming personal problems need from health care.”

Jennifer Lee Packing-Ebuen, MA, MPH, MD


“I believe that it is important to become familiar not only with current and past health policy, but also with current medical practice. The bioethics program provides a unique opportunity to see physicians, nurses, and other medical workers in action, to discuss and understand the issues that they face, and to develop ethical and policy guidelines that will help improve medical practice and doctor/patient communication.”

Sarah Pope, MA, JD
Project Manager for Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights Program, Leidos
Washington, DC


“The MA program exposed me to cross-disciplinary fields of study (HPS/medical ethics) that transcended the oft-perceived (but misinformed) distinction between science and non-science. Since completing my studies, I have attempted to exist within the union of the sciences and humanities in academe by working first as a science editor and writer at the University of Pittsburgh and now as a grant officer at Millersville University, a primarily undergraduate institute of higher education in south-central Pennsylvania.”

Ryan Sauder, MA
Senior Director of College Grants and Assistant Dean of Academic Advancement, Franklin & Marshall College
Lancaster, PA


“The MA Program was essential to my maturation as an ethicist, scientist, and physician. It afforded me the opportunity to learn critical reasoning, develop my writing skills, and hone in on a topic that has become the core of my research.”

Maria J. Silveira, MA, MD, MPH
Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of General Medicine and the Bioethics Program, University of Michigan


“The Bioethics MA Program has been a wonderful complement to my law education. The faculty members in this program are very accessible and willing to meet frequently outside of class. Overall, the bioethics classes have forced me to look at issues from a different angle, which is an invaluable tool that I will certainly use in my legal career.”

Emily Ayoub Spanovich, MA, JD
Prival Legal Practice


“The MA Program has given me a wonderful opportunity to explore aspects of behavioral genetics that I would not be able to investigate in my dissertation. The chance to consider and discuss the ethical, social, and legal implications of behavioral genetics with the faculty and students at the Center has been an incredible resource for me.”

James Tabery, MA, PhD
Associate Professor of Philosophy, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics, University of Utah
Author ofBeyond Versus: The Struggle to Understand the Interaction of Nature and Nurture


“Bioethics offers me interdisciplinary insight into historical, political, moral, and sociological aspects of medicine and science, broadening my views and expressions of intellectual creativity.”

Shanthi Trettin, MA, MD
Psychiatrist