Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics homepage for Gail Geller, Sc.D., M.H.S.

Gail Geller, Sc.D., M.H.S., is a Professor in the Department of Medicine with joint appointments in the Department of Pediatrics and the Bloomberg School of Public Health's Departments of Health, Behavior & Society and Health Policy & Management. She has a primary affiliation in the Berman Institute of Bioethics, where she is Co-Deputy Director of the Greenwall Post-doctoral Fellowship Program in Bioethics & Health Policy. She also has an affiliation in the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine and the Johns Hopkins/NHGRI master's program in genetic counseling. She received her B.S. from Cornell University and her doctorate from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health with concentrations in bioethics and social and behavioral sciences.

Most of Dr. Geller's scholarship has focused on empirical research regarding the ethical and psychosocial implications of genetics and genomics. She has been a member of two NIH Consortia: the Cancer Genetics Studies Consortium and the Informed Consent Consortium, and co-chaired the Task Force on Informed Consent for Cancer Susceptibility Testing. In addition to her primary interest in informed consent for genetic testing, Dr. Geller has longstanding interests in the areas of medical socialization and provider-patient communication under conditions of uncertainty. Recently, she received one of the highly coveted NIH "challenge" grants to explore the integration of palliative care in the management of children, young adults and families affected by chronic, life-threatening disorders (muscular dystrophy and sickle cell disease). Another of Dr. Geller's interests is in cultural differences in attitudes and practices regarding health and disease, most notably in the area of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), and the ethical and philosophical issues it raises. She received a prestigious Kornfeld Fellowship to explore the intersection of bioethics and CAM. She has served as co-director of the educational component of the Johns Hopkins CAM Center. She is also the ethics representative on the Data Safety & Monitoring Board of the National Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). She is an adjunct faculty member at the Tai Sophia Institute, where she co-teaches "New Science, New Thinking" in their Master's Program in Transformative Leadership and Social Change.

Dr. Geller is responsible for several components of the new undergraduate medical curriculum. She oversees the development, implementation and evaluation of the "biopsychosocial" Horizontal Strands, which include ethics and professionalism. In addition, she co-directs two courses: (1) the Scholarly Concentration called Medical Humanities, Bioethics & the Healing Arts; and (2) Restorative Medicine. Dr. Geller is a member of the scientific review panel for the ELSI Program (Ethical, Legal and Social Issues) at NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute. She has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society for Bioethics & Humanities, an IRB member, a member of the Ethics Working Group of the National Children's Study, a consultant to the Informed Consent Working Group of the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetic Testing, the CDC's Program in Public Health Genetics, and the Presidential Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments.

In addition to several journal articles, her scholarly achievements include authorship of "The ethics of predictive genetic testing in prevention trials involving adolescents," and co-authorship of "Recruitment of pregnant, minor adolescents and minor adolescents at risk of pregnancy into longitudinal, observational research: The case of the National Childrens Study," both in E. Kodish, ed, "Ethics and Research With Children, co-authorship of Feminism, bioethics & genetics" in S. Wolf, ed, "Feminism and Bioethics: Beyond Reproduction," as well as co-authorship and co-editorship of "AIDS, Women and the Next Generation: Towards a Morally Acceptable Public Policy for HIV Testing of Pregnant Women."