Harriet Washington

Harriet Washington is a science writer, editor, and ethicist who teaches bioethics at Columbia University. She authored, most recently, Carte Blanche: The Erosion of Medical Consent and A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind. Washington has held fellowships at Harvard, Stanford, and University of Nevada and has been a scholar at DePaul College of Law and Tuskegee University’s National Center for Bioethics. Her work helped provide the basis for the 2008 AMA apology to black physicians. Published widely in popular and science publications as well as refereed books and journals, her honors include a National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2020 Mailman School of Public Health’s Public Health Leadership Award.