January 23, 2026 – Naren Ramakrishnan
February 6, 2026 – Kylene Kehn-Hall
February 20, 2026 – Navid Ghaffarzadegan
March 6, 2026 – Patty Raun
May 1, 2026 – Ethics team presentation
Please share the below information with your labs, students, and colleagues as all are welcome!
When: May 1, 2026 on Zoom: https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/84153577959
Speakers: Lisa M. Lee, Barbara DeCausey, and Iris Jenkins
Abstract: Pandemic prediction research presents a plethora of ethical considerations. We have developed an ethics skill-building workshop, based on an NSF-funded institutional transformation grant (#2316634), that trains researchers to identify, articulate, and address the ethical dimensions of their work to promote research excellence. We will present preliminary findings from the institutional transformation grant and describe how we adapted the materials to the work of the COMPASS Center and pandemic science. We will launch our first COMPASS Center workshop this summer.
Bios: Lisa M. Lee is an expert on contact tracing, public health surveillance, ethics, and other topics related to infectious diseases that became highly sought after by members of the media reporting on COVID-19. Prior to joining the Virginia tech community in 2018, Lee served as the inaugural chief of bioethics at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. During the Obama administration, she served as executive director of the Presidential Bioethics Commission. For over 25 years, Lee has worked in public health and ethics at the local, state, federal, and international levels, including 14 years at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lee earned a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University, a masters of arts in educational psychology, and a master of science in bioethics. She is an epidemiologist, bioethicist, and ethics educator.
Barbara DeCausey joined Virginia Tech in 2019 as the director of the Human Research Protection Program. Prior to joining Virginia Tech, she served in several roles at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including deputy chief for the Clinical Research Branch which manages the international Tuberculosis Trials Consortium, director of the Human Research Protection Office, and an epidemiologist in the HIV Incidence and Case Surveillance Branch. She has more than 15 years of experience in research ethics and public health. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Illinois University and master’s degrees in both public health and business administration from Walden University.
Iris Jenkins, prior to joining Virginia Tech in August 2024, served in the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Research Compliance Office, leading the Human Research Protection program. While at UMass she also served as the administrator for the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Besides administration, Jenkins has conducted research on the development of visuospatial reasoning skills in relation to brain development in human infants and toddlers. She is an active member of Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research, where she served as a national speaker and advisor on their annual conference advisory group. Iris earned a master’s degree in plant pathology from the University of Arizona and a Ph.D. in neuroscience and behavior from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
