Karen G. Gervais, PhD
Dr. Gervais, Director of the Minnesota Center for Health Care Ethics, received her BA from Oberlin College, and her doctorate in philosophy from the University of Minnesota. A philosophy professor for 18 years, in 1989 she transitioned her career into the field of health care ethics. She served as Center Associate of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Minnesota, Coordinator of the Minnesota Network for Institutional Ethics Committees, Winifred and Atherton Bean Visiting Chair of Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Carleton College, Visiting Distinguished Professor of Law and Liberal Studies at Hamline University, and Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. Olaf College. Dr. Gervais' scholarly interests include clinical and organizational ethics and health policy, public health ethics, access to health care, health disparities, resource allocation, managed care, community benefit responsibilities of non-profit health care organizations, ethically informed decision-making for persons with dementia, and the definition of death. She has served as ethics and policy consultant for the Office of Technology Assessment, Minnesota Council of Health Plans, Minnesota Medical Association, Hennepin Medical Society, Minnesota Department of Human Services, Minnesota Department of Health, Minnesota Attorney General's Office, Science Museum of Minnesota, American Association of Health Plans, National Council of State Boards of Nursing and the National Marrow Donor Program. She also served as an ethics advisor to the Minnesota Commission on End-of-Life Care and is a member of the Minnesota Department of Health's Task Force on Health and Bioterrorism. She is currently co-investigator of the project, "Ethical and Policy Challenges in DBS for Parkinson's Disease." In 1987 Dr. Gervais published Redefining Death (Yale University Press) and in 1999 co-edited Ethical Challenges in Managed Care: A Casebook (Georgetown University Press). She has published in the Hastings Center Report, American Journal of Bioethics, IRB, The American Journal of Managed Care, Medical Humanities Review, Minnesota Medicine, and contributed articles to several edited works, including the Encyclopedia of Bioethics.

Dorothy E. Vawter, PhD
Dr. Vawter, Associate Director of the Minnesota Center for Health Care Ethics, received her doctorate in philosophy from Georgetown University and the Kennedy Institute of Ethics. She has worked for several federal commissions charged with examining ethical and policy issues in health care, including the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine, the Ethics Advisory Board, and the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects. She has also held appointments in health care ethics at five medical schools: Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, University of Florida, University of Rochester, and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Dr. Vawter is the principal investigator of an NIH-funded study on ethical and policy issues in the study, use, and financing of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease. She also directs the Minnesota Center's multidisciplinary projects on cross-cultural health care ethics. Her research interests include informed consent, cross-cultural health care ethics, research with human subjects-with special attention to surgical research ethics-professional integrity, medical futility and end-of-life decision-making, organizational ethics, and organ/tissue donation and transplantation. Dr. Vawter is co-editor of Healing by Heart: Clinical and Ethical Case Stories of Hmong Families and Western Providers (Vanderbilt University Press, 2003) and Ethical Challenges in Managed Care: A Casebook (Georgetown University Press, 1999). Other scholarly work is published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Hastings Center Report, The Journal of Clinical Ethics, The American Journal of Bioethics, IRB, Transfusion, Cell Transplantation, The American Journal of Managed Care, and Minnesota Medicine.

J. Eline (Ellie) Garrett, JD
Ms. Garrett is Assistant Director for Health Policy and Public Health and manages the NIH-funded project on funding surgical device trials. She brings 15 years' experience in managed care, health systems, and insurance and is past president of the Minnesota Public Health Association. In 2004 she was awarded the Albert Justus Chesley award for distinguished service in the field of public health in Minnesota. Prior to joining the Minnesota Center, she served as the Minnesota Council of Health Plans' Director of Operations and Community Affairs for six years. Her interests include organizational ethics and the intersection of public health and health care. She edited Health Plan Roles in Supporting Essential Public Health Service Functions: Putting Commitments into Practice. Ms. Garrett was educated at the University of Minnesota Law School.

Angela Witt Prehn, PhD
Dr. Prehn serves as Project Manager for Surgical Research for the NIH grant on ethical and policy challenges in DBS. She has expertise in research methodology and issues surrounding aging, functioning, and quality-of-life. Dr. Prehn has published a monograph on cancer incidence in Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino people in the United States and Asia, as well as several studies on cancer diagnosis and treatment in Asian/Pacific Islanders. She is experienced in communicating complex health issues to health care professionals and the lay public, as well as working to understand the political and policy implications of major health findings. Previously, she was Descriptive Epidemiologist for the Northern California Cancer Center and was a lecturer at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She received her doctorate in epidemiology from the University of California at Berkeley.

Timothy Q. McIndoo, MA
Mr. McIndoo, Research Associate, comes to the Center with over 20 years of editorial experience (science and technology, nonfiction, fiction), including work as translator, photojournalist, and fine-art photographer. Most recently he was a researcher, editor, and writer at the University of Minnesota's Center for Spirituality and Healing. Mr. McIndoo earned his MA in Medical Humanities (University of Minnesota) with a concentration in medical ethics. His main interests include the ethics of emerging technologies, the patient-physician relationship, the nature of patienthood, and the history of medicine. Previously Mr. McIndoo was an acquisitions editor at Hazelden Publishing where he discovered and developed manuscripts on mental health topics. In 1995 he wrote Today I Will Do One Thing: Daily Readings for Awareness and Hope, which has sold over 33,000 copies and has been translated into German, Spanish, and mainland Chinese.

Center Associates and Independent Contractors

• Barbara Babbitt, BSN, RN, MA, Center Associate for Diversity Studies. Minneapolis Public Schools

• Kathleen A. Culhane-Pera, MD, MA, Center Associate for Diversity Studies. Ramsey Family and Community Medicine Residency and West Side Community Health Center

• Raymond G. De Vries, PhD, Co-investigator, "Ethical and Policy Challenges in DBS for Parkinson's Disease." Bioethics Program, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Department of Medical Education at the Medical School, University of Michigan

• Thomas B. Freeman, MD, Co-investigator, "Ethical and Policy Challenges in DBS for Parkinson's Disease." Department of Neurosurgery, University of South Florida

• Elizabeth Gilles, MD, Center Associate for Neurology and Pediatrics. Pediatric Neurology, Children's Hospitals and Clinics, Minnesota

• Alan J. Hagstrom, DMin, Center Associate for Faith and Health. United Methodist Church, Wisconsin Conference

• Jan Malcolm, Center Associate for Health Policy and Public Health. Courage Center

• Sarah Marchand, Center Associate for Population Health