Ruth Macklin is Professor of Bioethics in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, USA. She received a BA with Distinction from Cornell University and an MA and PhD in Philosophy from Case Western Reserve University. She has more than two hundred sixty publications in professional journals and scholarly books in bioethics, law, medicine, philosophy, and the social sciences, in addition to articles in magazines and newspapers for general audiences. She is author or editor of thirteen books, including Mortal Choices (1988), Enemies of Patients (1993), Surrogates and Other Mothers (1994), Against Relativism (1999), Double Standards in Medical Research in Developing Countries (2004), and Ethics in Global Health: Research, Policy and Practice (2012). Her other publications include articles on HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, ethics in human subjects research, global health, and multinational research. Dr. Macklin is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science. She was president of the International Association of Bioethics from 1999-2001, and has served several terms on its Board of Directors. She has been a member of a committee in the Human Reproduction Programme at the World Health Organization (WHO) since 1989, served on the Vaccine Advisory Committee at WHO from 2001 to 2010, and was Chair of the External Ethics Committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2005 to 2008. Dr. Macklin chaired the Ethical Review Committee at the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in Geneva from 1996-2000; also at UNAIDS she was a member of the Global Reference Group on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights from 2003-2008.
Since 2001 she has co-directed an NIH Fogarty International Center Training Program on research ethics, which takes place in Buenos Aires, Argentina.