Advisory Board

Jan Boxill, PhD

Jan Boxill, is  Director of the Parr Center for Ethics, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, and the Chair of the Faculty Council at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Jan received her B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from UCLA. She specializes and teaches courses in ethics, social and political philosophy and feminist theory. She is editor of Sports Ethics (Blackwell 2003) and Issues in Race and Gender (2000), and has written articles on ethics in sports, Title IX, and affirmative action. Currently she is working on a book, Front Porch Ethics: The Moral Significance of Sport. In 2006, she received the first faculty Women’s Advocacy Award. She is past president of the International Association for Philosophy in Sport and is a member of the Carolina Speakers Bureau. Originally from a small town in upstate New York, Jan spent three years in the Air Force in the Women’s Air Force Band. She has been at UNC since 1985, has served as the Public Address Announcer for Women’s Basketball and Field Hockey and as the radio color analyst for Women’s Basketball. Jan is a graduate of BRIDGES Program, a North Carolina University Wide Academic Leadership program for women.

Marc Lange, PhD (ex-officio)

Marc Lange is Chair of the Philosophy Department and Bowman and Gordon Gray Professor of Philosophy. He specializes in philosophy of science and related areas of metaphysics and epistemology, including parts of the philosophy of physics, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of mathematics. He is the author of numerous books and articles, among them: Laws and Lawmakers: Science, Metaphysics, and the Laws of Nature (Oxford, 2009), An Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics: Locality, Fields, Energy, and Mass (Blackwell, 2002); Natural Laws in Scientific Practice (Oxford, 2000).

Eric Jungest, PhD (ex-officio)

Eric Juengst is Director of the UNC Center for Bioethics and Professor in the Department of Social Medicine and the Department of Genetics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He received his B.S. in Biology from the University of the South in 1978, and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Georgetown University in 1985.  He has taught medical ethics and the philosophy of science on the faculties of the medical schools of the University of California, San Francisco Penn State University, and Case Western Reserve University . From 1990 to 1994, he served as the first Chief of the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Branch of the National Center for Human Genome Research at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and from 2005-2010 he directed the Center for Genetic Research Ethics and Law at CWRU, an NIH supported “Center of Excellence in Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Research.”.

Richard N. L. Andrews, PhD

Richard N.L. Andrews is Professor of Public Policy, Environmental Studies, Environmental Sciences & Engineering, and City & Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Professor Andrews’ research focuses on the effectiveness and other consequences of environmental laws and policies. He has written at length on the historical development and consequences of U.S. environmental policies, on the National Environmental Policy Act and other analytical mandates in environmental decision-making, and on more recent innovations such as the adoption of environmental management systems and third-party certification procedures by businesses and government agencies, as well as on comparative environmental policy. His current work focuses on decision-making for mitigating and adapting to global climate change, particularly innovations in state-level policies to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy development. He has chaired study committees on environmental policy for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the National Research Council, and the National Academy of Public Administration, and has served on committees of the EPA Science Advisory Board and the Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Some of his publications include Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves: A History of American Environmental Policy (Yale University Press 1999, 2^nd ed. 2006); Environmental Policy and Administrative Change: Implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (Lexington Books, 1976);  “Environmental Regulation and Business ‘Self-Regulation’ ” (Policy Sciences, 1998); Third-Party Auditing of Environmental Management Systems: U.S. Registration Practices for ISO 14001 (National Academy of Public Administration, 2001, with Jan Mazurek); and “Environmental Management Under Pressure: How Do Mandates Affect Performance?” (Chapter 5 in Leveraging the Private Sector: Management-Based Strategies for Improving Environmental Performance, Resources for the Future Press 2006, with Andrew Hutson and Daniel Edwards Jr.).

Lois A. Boynton, PhD

Lois Boynton is Associate Professor at the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She is Public Relations Sequence head and was named to the University’s Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars. She won the School’s David Brinkley Teaching Award in spring 2007. Her research focuses on ethical decision-making by public relations practitioners, professionalism and social responsibility. Other research interests include agenda building, persuasion, and nonprofit public relations challenges. She has published works in academic journals, including Communication Yearbook, Public Relations Review, Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, PRism, Journal of Promotion Management and The Successful Professor. She also co-authored two book chapters, one on ethics and another on successful teaching techniques.

Laura C. Hanson, MD, MPH

Laura C. Hanson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.  Dr. Hanson graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1986.  She trained in Internal Medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and completed fellowships in Geriatric Medicine and in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at the University of North Carolina.  In 1991 she was awarded an MPH degree in Epidemiology from the UNC School of Public Health. Dr. Hanson is board certified in Internal Medicine, Geriatric Medicine and Palliative Medicine, and is the co-Director of the UNC Palliative Care Program.  Her clinical practice is focused on the care of frail and medically complex older patients and palliative care for patients of all ages.  She has served on Ethics Committees for UNC Hospitals, the Society of General Internal Medicine, and the American Geriatrics Society.  Her primary research interest has been to understand and improve the quality of palliative care for nursing home residents and other vulnerable populations.  Finding new ways to deliver high quality care with ethically appropriate decision-making is critical to the US healthcare system, and to the well-being of the patients and families.  Dr. Hanson has conducted numerous original investigations, including interventions to improve the quality of palliative care and ethical decision-making in practice.  She has been recognized for this work as a Soros Foundation Project on Death in America Scholar.

Joseph E. Kennedy, JD

Joseph Kennedy is Associate Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he teaches Criminal Law, Computer Crime Law, Criminal Justice Policy, Constitutional Law, and International and Comparative Criminal Law. His research interests include the sociology and politics of mass incarceration, communitarian theories of punishment, computer crime, and the Chinese Legal System. Professor Kennedy's scholarly writings have been published in the Georgetown Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, the Journal of Law and Contemporary Problems, Emory Law Journal and the Hastings Law Review. His article on the connection between mental states in regulatory crimes and the federal sentencing guidelines was selected as best criminal law paper for the Stanford Yale Junior Faculty forum in 2002, and he was the recipient of a Pogue Research Leave at UNC in 2003.

John McGowan, PhD

John McGowan is the Ruel W. Tyson Jr. Distinguished Professor of Humanities and Director, UNC Institute for the Arts and Humanities. Professor McGowan has received many grants and awards including a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to conduct the NEH Seminar for College Teachers on Literature and Values (2001 and 1997); a Fellow of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at UNC (1994); and, a selected participant at the NEH Institute on Aesthetics and Ethics at the University of California at Berkeley (1993). Professor McGowan has a long list of publications including: Democracy’s Children: Intellectuals and the Rise of Cultural Politics, published by Cornell University Press (2002); co-editor of the Norton Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism, published by Norton (2001); and, Thinking about Violence: Feminism, Cultural Politics, and Norms, in Centennial Review (1993).

Ellen Peirce, JD

Ellen Peirce is Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. Her field of research is in the employment and discrimination area, and she has published many articles on sex and religious discrimination in employment. She also has written on ethical analysis of sex discrimination and on global ethical issues affecting corporate governance and managers in the workplace. Professor Peirce is a consultant and policy adviser for corporations, including IBM, AFSA and InPhyNet, on employment law issues. She addresses issues of employee rights in the workplace, including sexual harassment, defamation in the workplace, wrongful discharge and negligent hiring.

Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, PhD

Geoffrey Sayre-McCord is the Morehead Alumni Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Professor Sayre-McCord works in moral theory with a special interest in questions of objectivity and evidence. Widely published, he has an international reputation that has him regularly going overseas to present his work. A three-time recipient of the Tanner Award for Teaching Excellence, he is committed not only to undergraduate teaching but also to teaching in the wider community. Some of Professor Sayre-McCord’s more recent works include: Criminal Justice and Legal Reparations, in Philosophical Issues (2001); On the Relevance of Ignorance to the Demands of Morality, in Rationality, Rules, and Ideals, edited by Sinnott-Armstrong (2002); and, Moral Realism, in Oxford Handbook of Moral Theory, edited by Copp (2006).

Kimberly Strom-Gottfried, PhD

Dr. Kim Strom-Gottfried is the Smith P. Theimann Jr. Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Professional Practice at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Social Work. Dr. Strom-Gottfried teaches in the areas of direct practice, higher education, and human resource management. Her scholarly interests involve ethics, moral courage, and social work education. She is the former chair of the National Association of Social Workers’ National Committee on Inquiry and is active in training, consultation and research on ethics and social work practice. She has written over 60 articles, monographs and chapters on the ethics and practice. She is the author of Straight Talk about Professional Ethics and The Ethics of Practice with Minors: High Stakes and Hard Choices and the forthcoming texts Bulletproof Boards (with Marci Thomas) and Cultivating Courage. Dr. Strom-Gottfried is also the co-author of the texts Direct Social Work Practice and Teaching Social Work Values and Ethics: A Curriculum Resource. Dr. Strom-Gottfried currently holds an appointment as the UNC Institute for Arts & Humanities Associate Director for the Academic Leadership Program, which helps prepare and support the next generation of academic leaders.

James C. Thomas, MPH, PhD

Jim Thomas is Associate Professor of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill.  Dr. Thomas founded and directs the Program in Public Health Ethics at the UNC School of Public Health.  With funding from the Greenwall Foundation, Dr. Thomas developed a list of competencies in public health ethics that serve as guidelines for teaching of ethics in schools of public health.  He is the principal author of the American Public Health Association's Code of Ethics and serves among a group of ethicists who advise the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Dr. Thomas’ primary research interest is in the relation between community dynamics and the distribution of disease.  He is a writer and co-editor of the textbook entitled Epidemiologic Methods for the Study of Infectious Diseases, published by Oxford University Press (2002).