Leading Ethicist and Fordham Professor
Named to EPA Board

Celia Fisher, Ph.D.

Celia Fisher, Ph.D., director of the Fordham University Center for Ethics Education, has been confirmed as chair of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Human Studies Review Board.

Fisher, who is also Fordham University’s Marie Ward Doty Professor of Psychology, will lead the Human Studies Review Board in its role as adviser to the EPA. The board’s primary role is to examine the science and ethical grounding of research submitted to the EPA for the approval of new products.

As one of the nation’s leading ethicists, Fisher is a member of the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections and co-chair of its Subcommittee on Research Involving Children. She is also founding editor of the journal Applied Developmental Science.

“This is an extremely exciting opportunity to make a difference by applying ethical standards to protect Americans in the most practical and necessary arena,” Fisher said of her appointment.

In July 2005, Fisher was awarded more than $2.6 million in research grants for three separate projects from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Her research will include a three-year project to collect information that can improve the conduct of research involving drug use and drug-related risk among economically disadvantaged people. She will also be working to expand Fordham’s alcohol prevention efforts through the Fordham Resident Alcohol Prevention Program.

Fisher has chaired the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Ethics Code Task Force (for which she received an APA Presidential Commendation); the New York State Board for Psychology; the Ethics Committee of the Society for Research in Child Development; and the National Task Force on Applied Developmental Science. She is a past member of the Ethics Working Group of the National Children’s Study; the National Institute of Mental Health Data Safety and Monitoring Board; and the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Clinical Research Involving Children.

Fisher is author of Decoding the Ethics Code: A Practical Guide for Psychologists (Sage Publications, 2003), and more than 100 publications in the areas of ethics and life-span development, including commissioned papers for the President’s National Bioethics Advisory Commission on relational ethics and vulnerable populations, and papers on the ethics of suicide research for the National Institute of Mental Health. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Leading Ethicist and Fordham Professor Named to EPA Board

Leading Ethicist and Fordham Professor
Named to EPA Board