Celia Fisher, Ph.D, the Marie Ward Doty Chair in Psychology at Fordham, was one of two researchers nationwide to receive a 2010 Excellence in Human Research Protection award from the Health Improvement Institute (HII).
Fisher, Fordham’s director of the Center for Ethics Education, received a Lifetime Achievement Award for her work in promoting the protection of vulnerable, marginalized and at-risk participants in research.
The awards were announced on Dec. 6 by Peter G. Goldschmidt, M.D., president and founder of the HII, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality and productivity of America’s healthcare. Also recognized were Angela J. Bowen, M.D. (chair, board of directors, Western Institutional Review Board, Inc.) and three institutions working for ethical conduct in research.
Fisher is a nationally recognized expert who has chaired research ethics committees for the Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency. Her recent work has focused on the ethics of research involving homeless and socially marginalized street drug-users, with a particular focus on issues facing research workers collecting data in the field.
“Research must reflect the values and merits of those we are studying,” Fisher said in a recent interview about her work. “We must understand what their perspectives are; those perspectives must inform how we work. Otherwise, we could be harming them in ways we don’t realize.”
The awards were founded by the Office of Human Research Protection. This year’s judges were drawn from provider, research review, compliance, legal and consulting organizations.
