Alumni Highlights

Amy McGuire, JD, PhDAmy McGuire, JD, PhD
Leon Jaworski Professor of Biomedical Ethics
Director, Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy
Baylor College of Medicine

The Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS) is pleased to highlight alumna Amy Lynn McGuire, JD, PhD. Dr. McGuire received a Bachelor of Arts in psychology summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and a JD summa cum laude from the University of Houston. She subsequently earned her doctoral degree in 2004 at UTMB in Medical Humanities, with concentrations in health-care ethics, law, and policy, and wrote her dissertation under the mentorship of William J. Winslade, JD, PhD.

Following her graduation from UTMB, Dr. McGuire joined the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston as Assistant Professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics. She was promoted to Associate Professor and Associate Director of Research for the Center in 2009. Promoted to her current position in 2012, she is the Leon Jaworski Professor of Biomedical Ethics and Director of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy. Her research on the clinical integration of emerging technologies, which focuses on ethical and policy issues in human genetics and genomic research, has been continuously funded over the years by the National Institutes of Health-National Human Genome Research Institute, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the National Institutes of Mental Health. She served as a member of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research from 2011 to 2015, and in 2014 she presented a TedMed talk (https://www.tedmed.com/talks/show?id=309672) titled "There is no genome for the human spirit." She has served on the Greenwall Foundation Faculty Scholars Program in Bioethics, and she is a Past President of the Association of Bioethics Program Directors.

Dr. McGuire has taught a variety of courses and given presentations about her work nationally and internationally. She has authored or coauthored more than 172 journal articles in major biomedical and bioethics journals. She has received the Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P. Faculty Excellence Award for Educational Leadership, the Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P. Faculty Excellence Award for Teaching and Evaluation, and membership in BCM’s Academy of Distinguished Educators. She was also recognized in 2016 by Texas Executive Women as a “Woman on the Move.” Congratulations to Dr. McGuire as the GSBS 50th Anniversary July alumna!