R. Alta Charo

R. Alta Charo is the Warren P. Knowles Professor of Law and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she is on the faculty of the Law School and the Medical School's Department of Medical History and Bioethics. She also serves on the faculty of the UW Masters in Biotechnology Studies program and lectures in the MPH program of the Dept of Population Health Sciences. She offers courses on health law, bioethics and biotechnology law, food & drug law, medical ethics, reproductive rights, torts, and legislative drafting. In addition, she has served on the UW Hospital clinical ethics committee, the University's Institutional Review Board for the protection of human subjects in medical research, and the University's Bioethics Advisory Committee. She has been a visiting professor at law and medical schools in Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Cuba, France, Germany, and New Zealand. From January to December 2006, she was a visiting professor of law at the University of California -- Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall).

In 2005, she was elected as a fellow of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters and in 2006 she was elected to membership in the National Academies' Institute of Medicine.

Prior to her arrival at UW in 1989, Professor Charo served as Associate Director of the Legislative Drafting Research Fund of Columbia University (1982-1985); Fulbright Junior Lecturer in American Law at the Sorbonne in Paris (1985-1986); legal analyst for the Biological Applications Program of the congressional Office of Technology Assessment (1986-88); and American Association for the Advancement of Science Diplomacy Fellow for the Policy Development Division of the Office of Population at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Professor Charo is the author of nearly 100 articles, book chapters and government reports on topics including voting rights, environmental law, family planning and abortion law, medical genetics law, reproductive technology policy, science policy and research ethics. She currently serves on the editorial boards of the "Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics," "Cloning: Science and Policy," "Public Library of Science -- Medicine," and the "Monash Bioethics Review."

Professor Charo is a member of the boards of the Alan Guttmacher Institute and the Foundation for Genetic Medicine, the National Medical Advisory Committee of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the program board of amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research. She has also been on the boards of the Society for the Advancement of Women's Health and the former American Association of Bioethics, as well as the ethics advisory board of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In addition, she has served as a consultant to the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine and the former NIH Office of Protection from Research Risks.

Charo serves on several expert advisory boards of organizations with an interest in stem cell research, including CuresNow, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the International Society for Stem Cell Research and WiCell, as well as on the advisory board to the Wisconsin Stem Cell Research Program. In 2005, she was appointed to the ethics standards working group of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Also in 2005, she helped to draft the National Academies' Guidelines for Embryonic Stem Cell Research, and in 2006 she was appointed to co-chair the National Academies' Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee.

In 1994 Professor Charo served on the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel, and from 1996-2001, she was a member of President Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Commission where she participated in drafting its reports on "Cloning Human Beings"(1997); "Research Involving Persons with Mental Disorders that May Affect Decisionmaking Capacity"(1998); "Research Involving Human Biological Materials: Ethical Issues and Policy Guidance"(1999); "Ethical Issues in Human Stem Cell Research"(1999); "Ethical and Policy Issues in International Research: Clinical Trials in Developing Countries" (2001); and "Ethical and Policy Issues in Research Involving Human Participants" (2001).

Since 2001 she has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences' Board on Life Sciences. She served as its liaison to the Committee on Research Standards and Practices to Prevent Destructive Applications of Biotechnology as well as its committee to develop national voluntary guidelines for stem cell research. She also served as a member of the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Smallpox Vaccination Program Implementation and in 2006 she was appointed to the IOM Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice. In 2005-2006, she served on its committee to review the FDA and the U.S. national system for the assurance of drug safety.

Ms. Charo was born in 1958 in Brooklyn, NY. She is fond of poker, foreign language study, cats, home renovation, Harry Potter books, old movies, roller coasters, salsa music, Jane Austen novels and Star Trek.