Postdoctoral Fellowship

In 2013, the McGovern Center launched the Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Medical Humanities and Bioethics. Fellows work with the Center for two years and are provided with opportunities to apply the humanities to healthcare through teaching, research, and scholarship. Our fellows teach in Center electives, such as Introduction to Medical Humanities and Humanistic Elements of Medicine, give presentations aligned with the McGovern Medical School curriculum, facilitate small groups in ethics courses across the university, and develop their own courses, such as “Doctors in Medicine,” “Quackery in Medical History,” and “Lived Experiences of Illness.”

To date, the Center has welcomed 13 postdoctoral fellows. In Fall 2024, three new fellows joined:

  • Pritha Bhattacharyya, PhD,
  • Marianne Florian, PhD, and
  • Jessica Wise, PhD
  • .


2022-2024

Margarita Ortiz, JD, MA

2018-2019

Timothy Houk, PhD, MA
Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, College of the Sequoias

2016-2018

Christine Wieseler, PhD, MA
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Santa Clara University

2016-2017

Alina Bennett, PhD, MPH, MA
Regional Ethicist, Kaiser Permanente; and Lecturer, Department of Health Sciences, California State University, East Bay

2015-2016

Keisha Ray, PhD
McGovern Professor of Oslerian Medicine; Associate Professor; Director, Medical Humanities Scholarly Concentration; and Director, Longitudinal Themes, McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics, McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston

2014-2016

Woods Nash, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor, Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Houston College of Medicine

2014-2015

Claire Clark, PhD, MPH
Associate Professor, Department of Behavioral Science; Director of Graduate Studies in Clinical and Translational Science; and Director of Undergraduate Certificate in Medical Behavioral Science, University of Kentucky College of Medicine

2013-2014

Ben Saxton, PhD
Writer; Visiting Assistant Professor, Bard Early College; and Adjunct Instructor, Program in Medical Ethics & Human Values, Tulane University School of Medicine