Executive Director
Holly Fernandez Lynch
Holly was appointed Executive Director in June 2012, but she has been involved with the Center since its inception, joining the inaugural cohort of fellows under the leadership of Founding Director, Einer Elhauge. At that time, she drafted the manuscript for Conflicts of Conscience in Health Care: An Institutional Compromise, published by MIT Press. Holly has also practiced law at Hogan & Hartson, LLP in Washington, DC (now Hogan Lovells), where she counseled pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients on complex regulatory matters involving the Food and Drug Administration. In addition, Holly has government experience as a bioethicist working with the Human Subjects Protection Branch at NIH's Division of AIDS, where she advised the Division, its clinical trial networks, and grant recipients on research ethics and human subjects regulatory issues arising in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and co-infection studies. Immediately prior to returning to Cambridge as a Center fellow in 2011, Holly served as Senior Policy and Research Analyst for President Obama's Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Holly graduated Order of the Coif from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was a Levy Scholar in Law and Bioethics. While pursuing her law degree, Holly also earned her Master of Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Working with Faculty co-Directors I. Glenn Cohen and Benjamin Roin, Holly's primary goal and responsibility as Executive Director is to advance the Center's visibility and impact at Harvard and beyond, in both academic circles and the public square. In addition to promoting the Center's mission through public events, sponsored projects, and various collaborations, Holly holds an appointment as Lecturer on Law at HLS and teaches a seminar on Bioethics in the Courts. She also generates independent scholarship in law and bioethics, with a focus on the regulation of human subjects research domestically and internationally, pharmaceutical development and regulatory policy, conflicts of conscience in both the medical and legal professions, and conflicts of interest in health care.
Works in Progress
The Future of Human Subjects Research Regulation (edited volume forthcoming, with I. Glenn Cohen).
Religious Liberty, Conscience, and the Affordable Care Act, in Ethical Perspectives (forthcoming March 2013).
Discrimination at the Doctor's Office, in the New England Journal of Medicine (forthcoming).
Human Research Subjects as Human Research Workers (law review article in progress).
Recent Publications
Guatemalans Used in Experiments Deserve Compensation (with I. Glenn Cohen), THE NEW YORK TIMES, July 5, 2012,
The Rights and Wrongs of Intentional Exposure Research: Contextualising the Guatemala STD Inoculation Study, J. Med. Ethics, Online First (Mar. 2012).
Ethical Evasion or Happenstance and Hubris? The US Public Health Service STD Inoculation Study, 42(2) Hastings Ctr. Rep. 30 (2012).
A Lesson from the Contraception Coverage Uproar? Rethink Employer-Based Insurance, Hastings Center Bioethics Forum (Feb. 2012).
Books and Chapters
Conflicts of Conscience in Health Care: An Institutional Compromise,
MIT Press (October 2008); paperback edition, September 2010
Conscientious Refusals by Physicians, in The Penn Center Guide to Bioethics, Vardit Ravitsky, Autumn Fiester, and Arthur Caplan, eds., Springer Publishing (March 2009)
Articles
Compliance with Advance Directives: Wrongful Living and Tort Law Incentives, 29 J. Leg. Med. 133 (2008), with Michelle Mathes and Nadia Sawicki.
Give Them What They Want? The Legal and Ethical Permissibility of Pediatric Placebo-Controlled Trials Requested by the FDA Under the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act, 16 Annals Health L. 79 (2007).
Short Essays
Adding Insult to Injury: Reluctance to Engage in Clinical Research with At-Risk Groups Further Disenfranchises These Populations,
9(11) Am. J. Bioethics 62 (2009), with Liza Dawson (open peer commentary).
Genetic Privacy, Abandonment, and DNA Dragnets: Is Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence Adequate?, 35 Hastings Ctr. Rep. 21 (2005).
Commentary
The Bush Administration's New Conscience Rule, The MIT PressLog (Dec. 2008).
Education
- University of Pennsylvania Law School, J.D., cum laude, 2006
Order of the Coif
- University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Master of Bioethics, 2006
- University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences, B.A., summa cum laude, 2003
Benjamin Franklin Scholar
Dean’s List
Previous Experience
- 2011-2012, 2006-2007, Academic Fellow, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics
- 2010-2011, Senior Policy and Research Analyst, Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (Presidential Advisory Committee)
- 2009-2010, Bioethicist, Henry M. Jackson Foundation, contracted to National Institutes of Health, Division of AIDS, Human Subjects Protection Branch
- 2007-2009, Associate, Hogan and Hartson, LLP
