Stephanie Morain Named Inaugural Recipient of Dracopoulos Rising Professorship in Bioethics

Prof. Stephanie Morain, faculty at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and a national leader in ethical and regulatory issues in pragmatic clinical trials, will be the inaugural recipient of the Dracopoulos Rising Professorship in Bioethics.

The new professorship has been created via an endowment established by a gift from Andreas Dracopoulos, a trustee of Johns Hopkins University and member of the Berman Institute’s National Advisory Board. The professorship is a three-year appointment and includes financial support for a junior or mid-career member of the Berman Institute’s faculty to advance their bioethics research and scholarship.

“Thanks to the support of the Dracopoulos Rising Professorship, I will be able to launch a series of projects that integrate my current work in research ethics with my longstanding interest in and commitment to gender equity and reproductive health,” said Morain, whose research focuses on ethical challenges in emerging clinical research designs, particularly learning health systems and pragmatic clinical trials. “Being selected for this professorship is a tremendous honor and opportunity.Specific areas of research envisioned by Morain, who also holds an appointment as an associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, include:

• Addressing exclusion of women of childbearing age from clinical research in emergency and acute care contexts due to the inability to confirm pregnancy status and unknown fetal risk;
• Evaluating policy options to reduce exclusion of lactating individuals from clinical trials;
• Evaluating, managing, and disclosing potential harms related to the collection of pregnancy-related data in research, in light of increasing state efforts to criminalize pregnant persons, clinicians, and other actors for the delivery or receipt of reproductive health services.

Jeffrey Kahn, Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director of the Berman Institute, said all faculty in the Institute who have not yet reached senior status in their faculty track are eligible to apply. The selection process included evaluation of the applications by an external review committee, who unanimously recommended Prof. Morain for the Professorship as well as noting the high quality of all the applications submitted“The establishment of this professorship is an important investment in the support and development of our outstanding younger faculty,” said Kahn. “The Dracopoulos Rising Professorship will help ensure that the Berman Institute continues to attract and retain the best and brightest scholars in our field.”