Vardit Ravitsky is a bioethicist, researcher, and author. She is President and CEO of The Hastings Center, a full professor at the University of Montreal, and a senior lecturer on Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is immediate-past president and current vice-president of the International Association of Bioethics, and the director of Ethics and Health at the Center for Research on Ethics. She is a Fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, where she Chaired the COVID-19 Impact Committee. She is also Fellow of The Hastings Center and of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
Ravitsky has published over 200 research articles and commentaries in bioethics, with a focus on the ethical, social, and policy implications of genomics and reproductive technologies. She leads several research projects, funded by the National Institutes of Health and by Canada's national and provincial funding agencies, and has been awarded a McConnell-University of Montreal Research Chair. She is lead editor of the Penn Center Guide to Bioethics.
Education
Ravitsky holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the Sorbonne University in Paris, France and a master's degree in philosophy from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, USA. In 2004, she completed her Ph.D. in philosophy with a specialization in Bioethics at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. From 2003 to 2005 Ravitsky was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Department of Clinical Bioethics of the National Institutes of Health and at the Social and Behavioral Research Branch of the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Career
Ravitsky was a researcher at the Unit for Health Rights and Ethics of the Gertner Institute for Epidemiology and Health Policy Research in Israel (2001-2003). In 2005, she accepted a position as assistant professor at Department of Medical Ethics in the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. In 2009, she joined the University of Montreal as an assistant professor. She was promoted to associate professor in 2014 and to Full Professor in 2020.
Ravitsky served as a Consultant to Genome Canada (2006-2008), assisting in the development of its GE3LS research program (Genomics and its ethical, environmental, economic, legal, and social implications). From 2008 to 2009 she was Senior Policy Advisor at the Ethics Office of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). In 2018, she was appointed board member of the Canadian Philosophical Association and member of the Genomics & Society Working Group of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). In 2020, she was featured by Genome Canada as a leading Canadian researcher in the area of ethical, social, and policy implications of genomics.
Research
Ravitsky's research focuses on reproductive ethics and the ethics of genetics and genomics, often targeting new and potentially disruptive technologies. She has studied the implications of emerging biotechnologies for women's reproductive autonomy, patients’ lived experiences, disability rights, and the governance needed to address ethical challenges in these areas. Her research also addresses societal and cultural dimensions of bioethical dilemmas and health policy.
Ravitsky's research is published in academic bioethics journals, as well as clinical journals. Her work explores subjects such as Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT), In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and pre-implantation genetic testing (PGT), germline gene editing, mitochondrial replacement therapy, gamete donation, epigenetics, the status of frozen embryos, posthumous reproduction, and public health approaches to infertility.
Donor conception
Ravitsky has written about the potential medical and psycho-social issues facing individuals born from gamete (sperm and egg) donation. She argued that their interests to have access to information about their genetic origins should be recognized. She also explored the implications of these interests in the context of cross-border assisted reproduction, where gametes and prospective parents may come from different countries.