In 2016, the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Bloomberg School of Public Health embarked on a project to address the need for ethical guidance and information to assist consumers in their food choices. A key step involved bringing together a broad range of academic and industry experts to grapple with the myriad debates that emerge around trying to find ethical consensus. To ensure a lively and informed debate, we drew upon the expertise of purchasers, retailers, farmers, water conservation experts, food safety specialists, nutritionists, and academics focused on animal welfare, labor and human rights, crops and agriculture, the environment, and the evaluation of standards. Meet the team of experts who have worked diligently in this effort.      

Meet The Team

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Principal Investigator, Professor of Toxicology; Founding Director (Emeritus), Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
    
Alan Goldberg, PhD
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Founding Director,
Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics
    
Ruth Faden, PhD, MPH
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Jessica Fanzo, PhD
   
Director, Global Food Ethics and Policy Program, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and School of Advanced International Studies
    
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Dr. Barnhill is a Research Scholar at the Berman Institute of Bioethics. Dr. Barnhill is a philosopher and bioethicist who works on food ethics, food policy, and public health ethics.  Her current research focuses on the ethics of non-rational persuasion and manipulation in public health.
Choose Food Core Academic Team: Public Health    
    
Anne Barnhill, PhD
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Nicole Civita, JD, LL.M. 
   
Professor Civita is Adjunct Faculty with the Berman Institute of Bioethics, an Affiliated Professor with the LL.M. Program in Agricultural and Food Law, and director of the Food Recovery Project. She also maintains an active law practice Of Counsel to Handel Food Law LLC and teaches in the Sustainable Food Systems program at Sterling College.  As a professor, food ethicist, and practicing attorney, her transdisciplinary work explores the relative efficacy of market-based, law and policy, ethical, and cultural strategies to enhance justice, conservation, and resilience in food systems.    
Choose Food ​Core Academic Team:  Labor & Communities
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Dr. Rollin is a distinguished professor of philosophy, animal sciences, and biomedical sciences at Colorado State University. He is a leading scholar in animal rights and animal consciousness. Dr. Rollin has authored numerous influential books in the field, including Animal Rights and Human Morality (1981), The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain and Scientific Change (1988), Farm Animal Welfare (1995), and Science and Ethics (2006).
Choose Food Core Academic Team: Animal Welfare
    
Bernard Rollin, PhD
Colorado State University
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Paul B. Thompson, PhD
Michigan State University
Dr. Thompson holds the W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural Food, and Community Ethics at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. He has formerly held positions in philosophy at Texas A&M University and Purdue University. His research has centered on ethical and philosophical questions associated with agriculture and food, and especially concerning the guidance and development of agricultural techno-science.
Choose Food Core Academic Team: Crops & Horticulture
    
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Dr. Garnett is a researcher at the University of Oxford, where she also runs the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN). The FCRN is an interdisciplinary and international network operating at the intersection of food production and consumption, climate and broader sustainability issues. Tara’s research centers on the interactions among food, climate, health, ethics and broader sustainability issues; she has a particular interest in livestock as a sector where many of these converge. Tara is also a fellow of the Oxford Martin School.   
Choose Food Core Academic Team: Environment &
     Natural Resources 
Tara Garnett, PhD University of Oxford
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Cornelis Johannes van Leeuwen, PhD
University of Utrecht and KWR Watercycle Research Institute
   
Kees van Leeuwen is Principal Scientist at KWR Watercycle Research Institute (Nieuwegein) and professor in Water Management and Urban Development at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development (Department of Innovation, Environmental and Energy Sciences) at the Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University. He has published about 200 reports and publications and 2 editions of a book on risk assessment of chemicals. His research focus is sustainability of water in cities.
​Choose Food Core Academic Team: Water
    
    
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Research Program Coordinator, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics
Claire Davis, MA
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Cara Wychgram, MPP
   
Research Program Coordinator, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics
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Senior Administrative Coordinator, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics   

    
    
Kelly Whalen, BS

Alone, we can do so little; together we can do so much."
                                                                     
                                                                        – Helen Keller