Email

jennifer.blumenthal-barby@bcm.edu

Positions

Cullen Professor of Medical Ethics, Center Associate Director

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas

Addresses

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy (Office)

One Baylor Plaza
Suite 310D
Houston, TX 77030
United States

Education

M.A. from Bowling Green State University

05/2004 - Bowling Green, Ohio United States

Ph.D. from Michigan State University

05/2008 - East Lansing, Michigan United States

Honors & Awards

Elected a Hastings Center Fellow

01/2023

Associate Editor for The American Journal of Bioethics

01/2022

Associate Editor for Journal of Medical Ethics

Journal of Medical Ethics (01/2019)

Nominated as Member, American Philosophical Association Committee on Philosophy and Medicine

07/2014 - 07/2017

Summer Seminars in Neuroscience and Philosophy (SSNAP) Fellowship

2016

Duke University

Greenwall Faculty Scholar in Bioethics

01/2011 - 12/2014

Fulbright & Jaworski L. L. P. Faculty Excellence Award in Teaching and Evaluation

07/2014

Fulbright & Jaworski L. L. P. Faculty Excellence Award in Educational Leadership

2014

Pfizer Bioethics Fellowship Recipient

01/2011 - 12/2014

Character Project Summer Seminar

Wake Forest University (06/2013 - 06/2013)

Junior Scholars in Bioethics Program

Wake Forest University (09/2011 - 09/2011)

Professional Interests

• Moral Psychology and Moral Philosophy
• Ethics
• Behavioral Economics
• Medical Decision Making
• Psychiatry

Professional Statement

Jenny Blumenthal-Barby, Ph.D., M.A. is the Cullen Professor of Medical Ethics and Associate Director of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. in philosophy, with a specialization in bioethics, from Michigan State University in 2008.
Dr. Blumenthal-Barby is a philosopher whose research focuses primarily on the ethical issues raised by research on human judgment and decision-making (e.g., decisional biases and heuristics, behavioral economics). Dr. Blumenthal-Barby has been the recipient of a prestigious Greenwall Faculty Scholar Award in Bioethics, a Pfizer Bioethics Fellowship, and has served as the Principal Investigator on four awards from the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to study and improve decision making in advanced heart failure. Most recently, she received funding as a Co-Principal Investigator to study ethics and decision making in pediatric deep brain stimulation through the NIH BRAIN initiative. She has also received funding as Principal Investigator from AHRQ to study the utilization of an AI/machine learning system that predicts personalized risks using big data. She has published more than 100 articles in bioethics, philosophy, and medical journals as well as served on several expert panels and committees related to bioethics and medical decision making. She is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Medical Ethics and is on the Board of Directors for the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities as well as the Editorial Board for The American Journal of Bioethics. She has a book forthcoming with MIT Press: Good Ethics and Bad Choices: The Relevance of Behavioral Economics for Medical Ethics. She directs the undergraduate medical education ethics curriculum at BCM, has taught courses and advised graduate students in ethics at Rice University, and co-directs (on the BCM side) the Rice-BCM Health, Humanism and Society Scholars Program for undergraduates.

Websites

Selected Publications

• Goodman KE, Blumenthal-Barby J, Redberg RF "FAIRS - A Framework for Evaluating the Inclusion of Sex in Clinical Algorithms." N Engl J Med. 2025 Jan 8;Online ahead of print Pubmed PMID: 39778166
• Smith, Jared N., Anne Barnhill, Julian Savulescu, S. Matthew Liao, Matthew McCoy, and Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby "Why Do You Ask?’ Revisiting the Purpose of Eliciting the Public’s Moral Judgments About Emerging Technologies." AJOB Empirical. 2024;forthcoming
• Hurley ME, Lang BH, Kostick-Quenet KM, Smith JN, Blumenthal-Barby J "Patient Consent and The Right to Notice and Explanation of AI Systems Used in Health Care." Am J Bioeth. 2024 Sep 17;Online ahead of print:1-13. Pubmed PMID: 39288291
• Dickert NW, Spiegelman D, Blumenthal-Barby JS, Graham G, Joffe S, Kahn JM, Kass NE, Kim SYH, Kerlin MP, Langford AT, Lavery JV, Matlock DD, Fenton KN, Mensah GA "Ethical issues in implementation science: perspectives from a National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute workshop." Implement Sci. 2024 Nov 19;19(1):77. Pubmed PMID: 39563405

Memberships

American Philosophical Association Committee on Philosophy and Medicine

Member

American Society for Bioethics and Humanities Medical Decision Making Affinity Group

Co-Founder and Chair

Journal of Medical Ethics

Associate Editor for Journal of Medical Ethics (01/2019 - 01/2024)

Funding

Philosophical Bioethics Seminar Series

Grant funding from Greenwall Foundation FSP Enhancement Grant

The Seminar Series is taught as part of the Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program. The seminar series includes various contemporary bioethical issues in public health, research ethics, clinical ethics, and decision-making. Read more about the series on the Philosophical Bioethics (PBhub) website. (renewed for 2025-2027)

Education and Shared Decision Making for Patients Considering LVAD Therapy

$25,000.00 ( 06/15/2025 - 06/15/2026 )

Grant funding from Professional Medical Education Grant from Abbott

Building on our team's previous work to develop, test, and disseminate a patient-centered decision aid (2014-2020) and examine the impacts of a personalized risk calculator on LVAD patient decision making (2020-2025), this grant will allow us to continue providing this vital clinical decision support tool to clinicians and patients at our partnering sites.

A Multi-Site Trial To Test Benefits of adding a personalized risk calculator to an online decision aid for left ventricular assist device (PI)

$1,960,847.00

Grant funding from AHRQ

This project tests the impact of a personalized, electronically integrated clinical decision support system for heart failure patients contemplating left-ventricular assist device (LVAD) therapy. The study involves utilization of an AI/machine learning system that predicts personalized risks using big data. Our study focuses on the ethical issues raised and how patients and clinicians use this information to make decisions. This work is funded by the AHRQ (2020-2025)

Pediatric Deep Brain Stimulation: Neuroethics and Decision Making (Co-PI with Lazaro-Munoz, Storch)

$1,733,920.00 ( 09/18/2019 - 08/31/2023 )

Grant funding from NIH BRAIN Initiative (R01)

Identify and address neuroethics issues and decisional needs related to pediatric deep brain stimulation for intractable movement disorders and psychiatric disorders.