Institute for Bioethics logo
Institute for Bioethics logo
Lisa S Parker

Lisa S. Parker, PhD

Director of the Center for Research Ethics

Professional Statement

Lisa Parker publishes on ethical concerns in the design and conduct of research, including informed consent, privacy protection, data sharing, and return of results. The first philosopher appointed in a department of human genetics, she has worked particularly on pharmacogenomic research, genetic enhancement, and precision medicine, and is now addressing parallel issues in neurotechnology research. She employs feminist approaches to bioethical issues and analyzes bioethics as a social practice.

She collaborates with investigators across the University and nationally, on both empirical studies and theoretical and policy analyses, including national collaborations on public health genomics and the gene therapy ecosystem. Projects with Pitt colleagues include ethical issues concerning incidental findings in stem cell transplant donors, maternal and child health, enrolling healthcare workers as subjects of research, and neural engineering research. She serves as an associate editor of the Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics.

After completing her second term on the NHGRI Genomics and Society Working Group and the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, Dr. Parker continues to serve on the Expert Scientific Panel of the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network, and as an ethics reviewer for the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund, National Endowment for the Humanities, and National Science Foundation, and a past member of the study section of the NHGRI ELSI Program (the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications Program).

University leadership includes co-chairing the Ad Hoc Committee on Generative AI in Research and Education and Institutional Conflict of Interest Committee; serving on the Humanities Council and committees on data governance, human cadaveric material, institutional data review, research data sharing, responsible data science, and election to a second term on the University’s Faculty Assembly and Budget Policies Committee. From 2016-2025, she served as Director of the University’s Center for Bioethics & Health Law.

Appointments

  • Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote Professor of Bioethics University of Pittsburgh
  • Professor Department of Human Genetics School of Public Health
  • Director of the Master of Arts in Bioethics Program and Graduate Certificate in Bioethics Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences
  • Director of the Research, Ethics and Society Initiative Office of Research

Education and Training

  • PhD, University of Pittsburgh, 1990
  • MA, University of Pittsburgh, 1986

Professional Interests in Bioethics

Representative Publications

  1. Parker LS. Bioethics in the Current Climate: Attending to Identity-Forming Feelings and Knowledge Production, Bioethical Responsibilities in Twenty-First Century Crises, Eds. Lanphier E and Churchill LR. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2026, pp. 7-24.

  2. Parker LS. Ethics Centers’ Conflicts of Interest and the Inadequacy of Disclosure as a Remedy. A Companion to Doing Ethics, Ed. A. A. Preti and T. A. Weidel, Wiley-Blackwell, 2025, pp. 161-174. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781394251896?msockid=2e5c5c5661c26ec32c4b489760006f81

    View publication

  3. Parker LS. Genetics and Genomics Research. Oxford Handbook of Research Ethics, Ed. D MacKay and A. Iltis, Oxford University Press, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190947750.013.31

    View publication

  4. Parker LS, Foster MW, Sharp RR. Genetic Research with Minority Populations, Race and Research: Perspectives on Minority Participation in Health Studies, 2nd edition, Ed. Beech B, Heitman E, APHA Press, 2024.

  5. Parker LS, Sankar PL, Boyer J, McEwan J, Kaufman D. Normative and Conceptual ELSI Research: What it is, and why it’s important. Genetics in Medicine 2019, 21:505–509. PMID:29970926 DOI: 10.1038/s41436-018-0065-x

  6. Parker LS. Ethical Expertise, Maternal Thinking, and the Work of Clinical Ethicists. Ethics Expertise: History, Contemporary Perspectives, and Applications. Ed. LM Rasmussen. Philosophy and Medicine Book Series, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2005, pp. 165-180.

Recent Funding

  • 2020-2022 Implementing Opioid Risk Prediction Models, co-Investigator, W Gellad (PI), Richard King Mellon Foundation
  • 2024-2026 Organizational Strategies for Improving Evidence-Uptake in Intensive Care, R35 Bioethics Supplement: Health care workers as human subjects in implementation research, To examine barriers and facilitators of health care workers’ participation in research in learning health care systems, co-Investigator, J Kahn (PI), NIH
  • 2024-2027 From Research to Clinic: Addressing Ethical and Policy Challenges Facing the Gene Therapy Ecosystem, Expert Advisory Committee member, K Maschke and M Gusmano (MPIs), NHGRI
  • 2024-2030 Equity in Maternal and Birthing Outcomes and Reproductive Health through Community Engagement Center, Developing a Community-Informed Model of 4th Trimester (4TM) and Interconception Care (ICC), co-Investigator, DD Mendez, MH Talabi, H Simhan (Co-PIs), NICHD
  • 2025-2026 Developing a Collaborative Cohort & Training Materials for Participant-centered Neural Prosthetic Research, CTSI/SSOE/SPH Trans-Disciplinary Collaboration Pilot Award, To revolutionize data collection and analysis in neural prosthetic research by integrating participant engagement and input, co-PI, with T Kozai
  • 2025-2026 Milk Match: Developing a Data-Driven Solution for Safe and Optimal Human Milk Sharing, Pitt Un-Challenge Pilot Award, to develop an algorithm for matching milk donor and recipient families using medical record data (to screen for potential health risks in donors), and matching babies by sex, age, and geographic proximity, to serve recipient infants who do not qualify for donor milk from milk banks, co-Investigator, J Demirci (PI)
  • 2026 Pluralism in Practice: Cultivating Civic Leadership Across Values and Viewpoints, To establish the Institute for Governance and Civic Life as a hub for research, teaching, and community-building, harnessing the exceptional value pluralism of Western Pennsylvania and the greater Pittsburgh region to strengthen civil discourse on campus and beyond., co-Investigator, J Murtazashvili (PI), US Department of Education
  • 2026-2027 Incidental diagnosis of clonal hematopoiesis among healthy, unrelated, hematopoietic stem cell donors: A feasibility study of psychosocial, ethical, and clinical issues, To examine key health-related factors and psychosocial impact of the incidental finding of CH in healthy stem cell donors, co-Investigator, R Tamari, G Switzer (Co-PIs). 1R21CA287094-01A1, NCI
  • 2026-2030 A Fully-Implanted Spinal Cord Stimulation System to Restore Sensation and Relieve Phantom Limb Pain after Lower-limb Amputation, UG3NS137282-01, NINDS, To quantify the safety and feasibility of a fully implanted spinal cord stimulation (SCS) system to treat phantom limb pain by restoring sensation from the missing foot in people with lower-limb amputation, Neuroethics Team and Scientific Steering Group, L Fisher (PI), NIH

Awards and Honors

  • Fellow, Hastings Center, 2019
  • Nellie Westerman Prize in Ethics, American Federation for Clinical Research, 1990