About

Director, Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics

Dr. Chuang is an associate professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Critical Care, at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx. Dr. Chuang’s research and pedagogy focuses on clinician communication with patients and families in the setting of terminal illness and the bioethical implications of providing end-of-life care. Her research and National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding have garnered national recognition, and she is a sought-after speaker in end-of-life care and has numerous publications in the field. She teaches Research Ethics and has published and lectured on Crisis Standards of Care and ethical problems in scarce resource allocation. She formerly practiced Palliative Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center for more than a decade.

Associate Director, Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics, Director, Bioethics Consultation Service

Adira Hulkower is Associate Director of the Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics and Chief of the Bioethics Consultation Service at Montefiore Medical Center. She also serves as Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she is Assistant Course Director for the medical school’s bioethics course.

Prof. Hulkower directs the Montefiore-Einstein Bioethics Fellowship Program and is the course director for the Mediation Skills Intensive and Clinical Ethics Consultation Skills Intensive, both part of the teaching curriculum in the Montefiore Einstein Master’s in Bioethics program. She teaches bioethics to medical students and residents. Her areas of focus include the dignity of risk, trauma-informed care, safe discharge planning, narrative ethics, and advance care planning. She lectures internationally on issues in clinical ethics.

Before joining the Center for Bioethics, Prof. Hulkower was a trial and appellate attorney with the Legal Aid Society, representing children in abuse, neglect, and juvenile delinquency proceedings. She received her JD from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and her Master’s in Bioethics from Columbia University. She is also a co-editor for the Hastings Center Bioethics Forum clinical ethics case studies section and a former board member of the Empire State Bioethics Consortium, where she remains actively involved.

Director, Bioethics Graduate Education, Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics

Paola Nicolas is the Director of Graduate Education Programs at Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics. She is also a Bioethics Consultant and Assistant Professor of epidemiology and population health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Prior to Montefiore, she was a medical ethicist at Northwell Health. She also held an assistant professor position at New York Medical College, School of Medicine. She holds a PhD in philosophy from the University Paris 1-Pantheon Sorbonne, a certificate in bioethics from Columbia University and her MBE from Montefiore-Einstein School of medicine. She completed her clinical ethics fellowship at Montefiore-Einstein Center for Bioethics and is accredited as a health care ethics consultant (HEC-C). She taught for the past 15 years in numerous institutions including University Paris 1-Pantheon Sorbonne, Fordham University, New York University, City University of New York and NYMC.

Assistant Director, Bioethics Graduate Education, Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics

Dr. Herron is a member of Montefiore’s Bioethics Consultation Service and Assistant Director of MECB’s Master of Science in Bioethics and Certificate in Bioethics and Medical Humanities. He is an Associate Professor of Family and Social Medicine with a secondary appointment in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of Family Medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine. Dr. Herron received his Master of Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and his Doctor of Bioethics from Loyola University Chicago. In addition to clinical ethics and bioethics education, his scholarly interests include health professions education, inter-professionalism, and social media use among health professionals. He is an active member of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and serves as Chair Emeritus of the Ethics and Humanities Educators in the Health Professions and Residency Training Affinity Group. Dr. Herron is on the editorial board for the Journal of Hospital Ethics and a former board member of the Academy for Professionalism in Health Care.

 Faculty, Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics

Lauren Sydner Flicker is an academic advisor and faculty member, after serving many years as director of graduate education programs at Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics. She teaches Death & Dying, Personhood, Reproductive Ethics and the Law, as well as the Bioethics and Medical Humanities course. Her scholarship focuses on reproductive ethics, ethical issues in end-of-life care, and ethics consultation. Prior to joining Montefiore, Professor Flicker was a fellow in the Cleveland Fellowship in Advanced Bioethics, a multi-institutional program administered by the Cleveland Clinic. In 2010, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics and an adjunct professor at Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel University of Philadelphia. She formerly practiced law at Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson in New York.

Faculty, Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics

Dr. Fernandes is an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine, at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Einstein. She also serves as Bioethics Course Director for undergraduate medical education at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and an Associate Program Director for the Pediatric Residency Program at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Einstein. Her research is focused on bioethics curriculum development and medical education, and she has also focused her efforts on improving social determinants of health screening in the inpatient hospital setting. She received her BS from Cornell University and her MD from Columbia University. She is board certified in general pediatrics and pediatric hospital medicine. She also earned her certificate in bioethics at Montefiore Einstein in 2023.

Operations Manager, Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics

Stacy Govan specializes in finance, tax and grant administration as well as the management of clinical services and educational programs. She has been an Associate at H & R Block for several years and has worked at Lehman College's Office of Research and Sponsored Programs.

Research Coordinator, Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics

Keonna Hyacinth recently earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Binghamton University with a pre-health focus. She has research expertise including recruitment for and analysis of oral history interviews and processing complex datasets. In her role as a Community Assistant at Binghampton University, she created a welcoming environment for 70 residents by organizing events and developing collaborative relationships. She previously worked at the New Jewish Home where she provided assistance and empathic companionship to clients.

Senior Associate, Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics

Tia Powell is recognized for her work in ethics education, end of life care, organ transplantation, ethics consultation and ethics policy, especially regarding public health disasters. She has served on several Institute of Medicine workgroups related to disaster response and planning, including becoming co-author of its 2009 report on standards of care in disasters, and co-chair of its current study on access to antibiotics in case of anthrax attack. She was also co-author of the landmark 2007 Chest series of articles on disaster preparation, and has served on the 2010 CDC workgroup assessing pediatric implications of disaster policies. She was formerly the Executive Director of the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, which functions as New York State’s Governor-appointed bioethics commission. She founded the Ethics Consultation Service at Columbia Presbyterian in 1992, and has provided bioethics expertise to numerous groups, including the New York State Cardiac Advisory Committee, the Empire State Stem Cell Ethics Committee, and the federal Secretary's Advisory Committee for Human Research Protections (SACHRP). She is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and of the New York Academy of Medicine. Dr. Powell is a member of the original faculty of the Certificate Program in Bioethics and the Medical Humanities, and has delighted in teaching bioethics for nearly twenty years.

Adjunct Faculty, Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics

Dr. Angela Rossetti is a biopharmaceutical industry veteran, having worked in the industry in commercial development, global marketing and advertising for over 30 years. She currently consults with biopharmaceutical companies, advising on the intersection of science, business and ethics.

She also sits on the board of Aethlon, a medical device company dedicated to developing products to treat cancer and life-threatening infectious diseases, now in clinical trials in Australia.

Dr. Rossetti has previously held board seats with companies in women’s health and rare disease, and with Danske Bank advising on their biotech funds.

Previously she was a global vice president in commercial development at Pfizer, and held positions of increasing responsibility in marketing at Wyeth. She has served as a strategic consultant to Kala Pharmaceuticals, and Celgene Corporation before its acquisition by Bristol Myers Squibb, and was Executive Vice President at Cell Machines, Inc. an early stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel protein therapies for hemophilia.

Dr. Rossetti holds a Doctorate in Bioethics from Loyola University Chicago where she focused on Research Ethics and Rare Disease ethics. She is also holds an MBE from Montefiore Einstein, an MBA from Columbia University, and a BA in Biology and English from the University of Pennsylvania. She is a member of the Empire State Bioethics Consortium and a charter member of the Biopharmaceutical Industry Bioethics Forum, founded by Eli Lily in 2016.

Adjunct Faculty, Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics

Craig Irvine, PhD, is Co-Founder of the Division of Narrative Medicine, Columbia University, New York.

Dr. Irvine holds a PhD in Philosophy. For over 25 years, he has been designing and teaching cultural competency, ethics, Narrative Medicine, and Humanities and Medicine curricula for residents, medical students, physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, dentists, and other health professionals. He has over 30 years of experience researching and teaching the history of philosophy, phenomenology, ethics, and narrative medicine. Craig is co-author of The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine and has published articles in the areas of ethics, narrative medicine, residency education, and literature and medicine. He has presented at numerous national and international conferences on these and other topics.