Barbara A. Koenig, Ph.D., is Professor of Bioethics and Medical Anthropology based at the Institute for Health & Aging, University of California, San Francisco. Currently, she co-directs a “Center of Excellence in ELSI Research” that focuses on translational genomics, co-leads an NCI ROI on return of results in genomic biobanks, and directs the ELSI component of a U19 award focused on newborn screening in an era of whole genome analysis. Prof. Koenig pioneered the use of empirical methods in the study of ethical questions in science, medicine, and health.
Previously she was the founding executive director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University; she created and led the Biomedical Ethics Research Program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco joint program in Medical Anthropology
She is an active participant in federal policy, having served on the ethics committee that advises the director of the CDC and the DHSS “Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Genetic Testing.”
She was a fellow at the Rockefeller Study Center in Bellagio, Italy, and the Brocher Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland. She is an elected fellow of the Hastings Center in New York. In 2009 the University of Minnesota named Koenig one of its "Top 100" graduates in honor of the School of Nursing centenary celebration.