Paul Root Wolpe

Paul Root Wolpe (born February 26, 1957), is an American sociologist and bioethicist. He is the Raymond F. Schinazi Distinguished Research Chair in Jewish Bioethics and a professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Wolpe served for 15 years as the Bioethicist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He was Co-Editor of the American Journal of Bioethics (AJOB), and was the long-time Editor-In-Chief of AJOB Neuroscience, the official Journal of the International Neuroethics Society (INS). Wolpe was also a founder and a member of the board of directors Executive Committee of the INS. He was the first National Bioethics Advisor to Planned Parenthood Federation of America. He is the Past President of the Association of Bioethics Program Directors, past President of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, a Fellow of The Hastings Center, and a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the country’s oldest medical society. He received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the American Jewish University in 2019.

After serving as the Director of the Emory University Center for Ethics for 16 years, Wolpe stepped down on June 1, 2024, to begin building a new Center for the University, tentatively titled the Emory Center for Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation (PACT)

He is the brother of David Wolpe.

History

Wolpe was born on February 26, 1957, in Charleston, South Carolina. He completed his undergraduate degree in the sociology and psychology of religion at the University of Pennsylvania. Wolpe earned an M.A., M.Phil., and PhD from Yale University. He spent 3.5 years in the Department of Psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College. Wolpe returned to the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught for over 20 years. He was a Senior Fellow of Penn's Center for Bioethics where he directed the Scattergood Program for the Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health and the Program in Psychiatry and Ethics at the School of Medicine. He had appointments in the Departments of Psychiatry and Medical Ethics in the School of Medicine, and in the Department of Sociology in the College. He moved to the faculty of Emory University in 2008, where he holds appointments in Medicine, Psychiatry, Pediatrics, Neuroscience and Biological Behavior, and Sociology.

Teaching and publications

Wolpe has written over 150 articles, editorials, encyclopedia articles, and book chapters in sociology, medicine, and bioethics, as well as general ethics. He co-authored the textbook ''Sexuality and Gender in Society'', and the end-of-life guide ''Behoref Hayamim: In the Winter of Life''.

Dr. Wolpe was named one of Trust Across America’s “Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior,” and won the 2011 World Technology Network Award in Ethics. Dr. Wolpe has been chosen by Faculty Row as a “SuperProfessor” and by The Teaching Company as a "Superstar Teacher of America.” His TED Talk Talk has over 2 million views, and he was profiled in the November, 2011 The Atlantic Magazine as a “Brave Thinker of 2011.”

References

External links

Official website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolpe, Paul Root
1957 births
American sociologists
Bioethicists
Living people
20th-century American Jews
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy alumni
Presidents of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities
21st-century American Jews