In this section

WHAT You’ll LEARN

  • Analyze, understand, and integrate the challenging issues facing society as a result of advances in medicine, health, and science
  • Moral, cultural, and historical issues at the intersection of life sciences and humanities

WHO YOU COULD BE

  • Clinical research coordinator
  • Environmental scientist
  • Community housing specialist
  • Attorney
  • Family nurse practitioner
  • Physical therapist

OVERVIEW

Is it ethical to genetically enhance humans to be “better than well”? Should we keep someone on life support in order to gestate her fetus? What is brain death anyway? What do we owe the starving poor? Explore these questions—and other challenging issues facing society as a result of advances in medicine, health, and science—in the interdisciplinary program of bioethics.

The program is unique at Puget Sound and rare among liberal arts colleges. Students analyze moral, cultural, and historical issues at the intersection of life sciences and humanities. Topics include regenerative medicine and human stem cell research, global health, race, culture, gender and health care, global warming, genetic screening, human population growth, embryology, reproduction, death and dying, and neuroscience. Faculty members from several departments provide the cross-disciplinary perspective that is the hallmark of this concentration.

 

SAMPLE COURSES
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MEET THE FACULTY
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Kristin Johnson
Professor and Director, Science, Technology, Health, and Society

Prof. Johnson focuses on the history of the life sciences and the relationship between science and religion since the 17th century, with special interest in the naturalist tradition of the 19th and 20th centuries.

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Jung Kim
Professor, Exercise Science

While researching the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in regulating rodents' skeletal muscle phenotype, Prof. Kim also teaches a variety of courses, including human physiology and ethics in sports.

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Ha Jung Lee
Associate Professor, Religion, Spirituality, and Society and Bioethics

With research focused on end-of-life decision-making by ethnic minority immigrants, Prof. Lee teaches courses in both the religious studies department and Bioethics Program.

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Siddharth Ramakrishnan
Professor, Biology and Director, Neuroscience

Prof. Ramakrishnan teaches high-level biology and neuroscience courses while focusing research on sensory-motor integration, developmental biology, and neuroendocrinology.

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Gregory Johnson
Visiting Assistant Professor, Biology

Prof. Johnson teaches a wide range of biology courses Cell Biology and Biochemical Pathways/Processes, as well as serving as the Faculty Chair for Health Professions Advising.

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Sam Liao
Professor and Chair, Philosophy

Prof. Liao researches on the interactions between minds and social realities. In practice, this broad interest gets him to explore connections between imagination, cognition, values, art, and more.

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Suzanne Holland
Professor, Religion, Spirituality, and Society, John B. Magee Professor of Science and Values, and Director, Bioethics

Prof. Holland teaches courses in ethics and values, including topics in gender studies and bioethics. Her research interests include ethics in human genetics, biotechnology, religion, and culture.

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Ariela Tubert
Professor, Philosophy

Prof. Tubert's research is in moral philosophy and action theory. She also has interests in social and legal philosophy, Latin American Philosophy, and ethical issues in artificial intelligence and the environment.

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EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

A sampling of ways our students learn through experience:

  • Kate Gladhart Hayes '20 was awarded a summer research grant in 2019 for her study "The Half-Life of Environmental Racism: Reproductive Justice and Nuclear Technology on Indigenous Lands" after spending summer 2018 in Spain on the Madrid Summers internship program.
  • Samantha Lilly '19 won a prestigious Watson Fellowship for a year of international travel and study following graduation, pursuing her topic "Understanding Suicidality Across Cultures.” This continues research she did during her summer 2019 research grant, "An Ethnographic, Experimental Philosophical Inquiry into Attitudes and Perceptions Toward Suicidality."
  • Grant Garcia '18 spent summer 2017 studying comparative healthcare of Northern Europe system in a classroom setting and clinical medicine in Copenhagen, Denmark and Vienna, Austria in a hospital setting.

JOBS

Our graduates work at:

  • Washington State Department of Health (staff attorney)
  • Oregon Health & Science University (clinical research assistant)
  • UW Microbiology (research scientist)
  • PIONEER Technologies Corporation (staff environmental scientist)
  • University of Chicago (research and evaluation consultant)

CONTINUE STUDYING

Our graduates continue their studies at:

  • Lewis & Clark Law School 
  • Northwestern University (M..S, health communication)
  • The George Washington University (master’s degree, public policy analysis)
  • Iowa State University College of Agriculture & Life Sciences (master’s degree, ecology and evolutionary biology)
  • Vanderbilt University School of Nursing (master’s degree, family nurse practitioner)
Capriana Jiang ’22 (right) with a visitor of Tacoma's Neighborhood Clinic
Community
Students

Puget Sound Pre-Med Student on a Mission To Provide Equal Access to Health Care

Capriana Jiang ’23 volunteers for a Tacoma nonprofit that runs a free health clinic
Justin Tiehen and Ariela Tubert
Campus
Faculty

University of Puget Sound announces faculty appointments to endowed positions

Professors will deepen conversations, research, and curriculum about bioethics, artificial intelligence, and more
Graham Hall ’24 breathes through a special monitoring device.
Students

University of Puget Sound Students Take a Plunge for Science

Chris Nicol ’24 researches the effect of cold water on the mammalian dive reflex

BEYOND THE CLASSROOM

Copenhagen, Denmark
DENMARK

Samantha Scott '17 spent a term at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad studying the Cognitive Neuroscience of Consciousness.

2019 National Bioethics Bowl team
NATIONAL BIOETHICS BOWL

Simone Moore '20, one of the university's first Posse Scholars, was active in a variety of aspects of campus including Adelphian Concert Choir and student government, as well as being part of the Ethics Bowl team participating in the National Bioethics Bowl in 2019.

Sri Lanka
SRI LANKA

Samantha Lilly '19 spent the summer of 2017 in Sri Lanka completing a psychology internship with a mental health placement.

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