Bioethicist Thomas H. Murray is president of The Hastings Center, Garrison, N.Y., an interdisciplinary research institute that addresses fundamental ethical issues in the areas of health, medicine, and the environment. His research interests cover a wide range of ethical issues in medicine and science, including genetics, aging, children, organ donation, and health policy.

Murray was born in 1946 in Philadelphia, Pa. He earned his B.A. (1968) from Temple University with a major in psychology and his Ph.D. (1976) from Princeton University in social psychology. After teaching in interdisciplinary studies at Western College of Miami University (1975-1980), he took a post as an associate at the Hastings Center in 1980. Returning to academia in 1984, he taught for three years at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and for 12 years at the medical school of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, where he also was director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics. Named president of the Hastings Center in 1999, he also maintains adjunct professor status at Case Western.

Murray is presently a member of the NIH Director's Working Group on Oversight of Gene Therapy Research and has testified before numerous congressional committees. He is the founding editor of the journal Medical Humanities Review and the author of more than 200 publications covering a wide range of ethical issues in medicine and science, including his 1996 book, The Worth of a Child.