Vaccines, Ethics, and the Common Good
Friday, September 18, 2026 | 8:30 am - 6:30 pm |Corcoran Commons
Childhood immunization in the United States is in crisis. Immunization rates are at their lowest levels in two generations. Measles, pertussis and influenza are resurgent in American children. In 2025, there were 2,289 confirmed measles cases with 3 deaths, and more than 28,000 cases of pertussis with 16 deaths. In 2026, there have been more than 2,300 measles cases through late July. Return of poliomyelitis, congenital rubella syndrome, and other, long vanquished vaccine-preventable diseases is a real possibility.
This conference will examine the current vaccine crisis, review its historical and philosophical origins, consider the balance between personal choice and the common good, and develop a nuanced, ethically informed strategy for childhood immunization that moves beyond the current, highly polarized debate, builds vaccine demand, and emphasizes vaccine equity. We recognize that carefully crafted communications will be key to disseminating such a strategy. The conference will therefore close with a discussion of approaches to communication that can bring all Americans together with the shared goal of safeguarding our children’s health.
It is our intent at the end of this conference to produce a Declaration that addresses the moral dimension of childhood immunization and provides parents, pediatricians, public health authorities, and elected officials with an ethically informed path forward. This statement will move beyond an analysis of vaccines’ risks and benefits for individual children and present a more holistic assessment emphasizing that childhood immunization is a moral good and that children can flourish only when they live in communities where people care for one another and work together to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.
The commissioned papers presented at this conference will be gathered into a book. This book will be published by Wipf & Stock and added to the series of conference volumes that Boston College has published biennially since 2020 on key topics at the intersection on public health and ethics.
The conference will be hosted by the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good and the Theology Department at Boston College in partnership with the Communication Department, the Connell School of Nursing, the Law School, the School of Social Work, the Gloria L. and Charles I. Clough School of Theology and Ministry, and the Catholic Health Association.
Schedule and RegistrationFriday, September 18, 2026 | Corcoran Commons | Register to Attend | |
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| 8:00-8:30 AM | CONVENING AND BREAKFAST | NEWTON ROOMLight continental breakfast |
| 8:30-8:45 AM | OPENING REMARKS | HEIGHTS ROOMWelcome to Boston College
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| 8:45-9:00 AM | INTRODUCTION TO THE CONFERENCE AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE | HEIGHTS ROOM
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| 9:00-10:00 AM | VACCINES AND DISEASE: THE CONTRIBUTION OF VACCINES TO DISEASE PREVENTION IN THE U.S. AND GLOBALLY | HEIGHTS ROOM
Moderator: Katherine E. Gregory, PhD, RN, FAAN, Dean, Connell School of Nursing, Boston College |
| 10:00-11:00 AM | CURRENT STATUS OF CHILDHOOD IMMUNIZATION AND VACCINE-PREVENTABLE DISEASES | HEIGHTS ROOM
Moderator: Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc, FAAP, Professor, Director, Global Observatory on Planetary Health, Boston College |
| 11:00-11:15 AM | COFFEE BREAK | NEWTON ROOM |
| 11:15 AM-12:15 PM | VACCINE SKEPTICISM: ORIGINS AND DISSEMINATION STRATEGIES | HEIGHTS ROOM
Moderator: Gautam N. Yadama, PhD, Dean, School of Social Work, Boston College |
| 12:15-1:00 PM | LUNCH AND STUDENTS' POSTER SESSION | NEWTON AND BOSTON ROOMS |
| 1:00-1:45 PM | VACCINE MANDATES AND THE LAW | HEIGHTS ROOM
Moderator: Odette Lienau, Marianne D. Short, Esq., Dean and Professor, Law School, Boston College |
| 1:45-2:45 PM | VACCINES, PERSONAL CHOICE, AND THE COMMON GOOD | HEIGHTS ROOM
Moderator: Daniel J. Daly, PhD, Executive Director, Center for Theology and Ethics in Catholic Health, Gloria L. and Charles I. Clough School of Theology and Ministry, Boston College |
| 2:45-3:15 PM | VACCINES FOR ALL CHILDREN: THE IMPORTANCE OF EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION | HEIGHTS ROOM
Moderator: Douglas W. Comeau, DO, Director, University Health Services, Boston College |
| 3:15-3:30 PM | COFFEE BREAK | NEWTON ROOM |
| 3:30-4:30 PM | COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING VACCINE DEMAND | HEIGHTS ROOM
Moderator: Summer Sherburne Hawkins, PhD, Director, Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good, Boston College |
| 4:30-5:30 PM | THE WAY FORWARD | HEIGHTS ROOM
Moderator: Erik Owens, Director, International Studies Program, Boston College |
| 5:30-6:00 PM | CONCLUDING SESSION | HEIGHTS ROOM
Moderator: Andrea Vicini, SJ, MD, PhD, STD, Chairperson, Michael P. Walsh Professor of Bioethics, Theology Department, Boston College |
| 6:00-7:00 PM | RECEPTION AND STUDENTS' POSTER SESSION | NEWTON AND BOSTON ROOM |
David Quigley, PhD
David Quigley is the Robert L. and Judith T. Winston Provost and Dean of Faculties at Boston College where he is also Professor of History. A scholar of the nineteenth-century American city, Quigley received his B.A. in American Studies from Amherst College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in History from New York University.
Quigley’s research explores the history of race and democracy in the urban United States between the Revolution and Reconstruction with a particular focus on New York City. Among his works are Second Founding: New York City, Reconstruction, and the Making of American Democracy and Jim Crow New York: A Documentary History of Race and Citizenship, 1777-1877. Between Amherst and N.Y.U., Quigley taught high school social studies in the New York City Public Schools at John Jay High School in Brooklyn in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Quigley joined the Boston College History Department in 1998 and earned the University's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2007. Between 2008 and 2014, he served as Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Boston College during which time he oversaw the hiring of 160 new faculty colleagues and helped lead the design and construction of a new 180,000-square-foot humanities building.
As Provost, he has co-chaired the University Strategic Planning Initiative that resulted in “Ever to Excel: Advancing Boston College's Mission” (2017) that identified academic priorities for this decade. Since the Board of Trustees approved the plan, over 400 new faculty have joined the University, programs in engineering and integrated science and society have been launched, and the undergraduate core curriculum has been renewed.
Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc, FAAP
Philip J. Landrigan is a pediatrician and public health physician. He is a graduate of Boston College, Harvard Medical School, and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He trained in epidemiology at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). His research uses the tools of epidemiology to increase understanding of how hazardous exposures in the environment harm human health, especially the health of infants and children. He is deeply committed to translating findings from his research into public policy to protect health, prevent disease, and save lives.
For many years, his research focused on neurotoxic chemicals such as lead and pesticides, and he undertook investigations quantifying the effects of these chemicals on children's developing brains. His early studies of childhood lead poisoning conducted in collaboration with the late Herbert L. Needleman, MD demonstrated that lead is toxic to children even at very low levels, causing IQ loss and behavioral problems in the absence of clinically obvious symptoms of lead poisoning. Based on those findings, and despite the vigorous opposition of the lead industry, they successfully persuaded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to remove lead from gasoline and paint. These actions reduced childhood lead poisoning in the U.S. by 95% and resulted in a nearly 5-point gain in the mean IQ of all American children born since 1980. Studies he led at U.S. National Academy of Sciences found that children are exquisitely sensitive to pesticides and other toxic chemicals in the environment. Based on those findings, he and pediatric colleagues persuaded the U.S. Congress to revamp federal pesticide law through passage of the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, the only U.S. environmental statute that contains provisions specifically safeguarding children's health. That work led also to creation of EPA's Office of Children's Health Protection.
In New York City, he served for many years on the faculty of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he was Professor of Pediatrics and Preventive Medicine and Dean for Global Health. At Mount Sinai, he was involved in the medical and epidemiologic follow-up of 20,000 9/11 rescue workers, which documented that more than 40% have persistent abnormalities of pulmonary function and 15% have mental health problems related to their service.
Most recently, his research has examined global environmental threats to health. From 2015 to 2018, he co-chaired the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, which found that pollution is responsible for an estimated 9 million deaths per year, is closely linked to climate change, and is an existential threat to planetary health. Since 2019, he has chaired the Monaco Commission on Human Health and Ocean Pollution examining the links between ocean pollution and human health. From 2021 to 2023, he chaired the Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health, which examined plastics' impacts on human health across the plastic life cycle and formulated recommendations to guide drafting of the U.N. Global Plastics Treaty, currently in development. He currently co-leads “The Lancet Countdown on Health and Plastics.”
Dr. Landrigan joined the Boston College faculty in 2018. Former Director of the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good, he now directs the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine.
Summer Sherburne Hawkins, Ph.D., MS
Summer Sherburne Hawkins joined the Boston College School of Social Work (BCSSW) faculty in 2012. She is a social epidemiologist with an interest in addressing policy-relevant research questions in women's and children's health.
Her research examines the impact of policies on health disparities in parents and children, particularly using methodology that integrates epidemiology and economics. She uses applied econometric techniques to evaluate natural experiments created through policy changes within and between U.S. states, including substance use policies, reproductive health-related policies, breastfeeding policies, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Hawkins has published in prominent peer-reviewed public health journals on the topics of tobacco and cannabis use, maternal morbidity and mortality, infant feeding practices, and preventive health services as well as the impact of state policies on disparities in these health behaviors and outcomes.
Hawkins is the Associate Director for the Global Public Health and the Common Good program and the Assistant Director of the Center for Child and Family Policy at Boston College. She is also the co-chair of the SACRU Working Group 6 on Gender Equity in the University and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. Prior to joining BCSSW, Hawkins was a Cohort 7 Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health from 2009 to 2011.
Elena Conis, PhD
Elena Conis is a historian of science and medicine whose research focuses on scientific controversies, science denial, and the public understanding of science. She is the author of How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT, which received the 2024 William H. Welch Medal and was a finalist for the 2023 National Association of Science Writers Book Award; Vaccine Nation: America's Changing Relationship with Immunization, which received the 2015 Arthur J. Viseltear Award; and, with Aimee Medeiros and Sandra Eder, Pink and Blue: Gender, Culture and the Health of Children.
Her current book project, Measles: Truth and History, is under contract with Polity Press. Her research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Institutes of Health/National Library of Medicine, and the Science History Institute. She is also a recipient of a 2026 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.
Conis is currently Professor and North Gate Chair, and former Interim Dean, of U.C. Berkeley Journalism. She is an affiliate of Berkeley's History Department, Media Studies Program, and Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, and Society, and UCSF's Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. Before coming to Berkeley, she was a professor of history and the Mellon Fellow in Health and Humanities at Emory University and an award-winning health columnist and reporter for the Los Angeles Times.
Martin McKee, CBE, MD, DSc
Since his appointment to a substantive post at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in 1990 McKee developed a major research program on health and health care in Europe, led one of the School's largest Research Units, established the School's first cross-departmental research center, and contributed substantially to the restructuring of one of the School's most successful MSc courses.
As Medical Director at LSHTM he has had lead responsibility for all matters related to the clinical aspects of contracts—including joint National Health Service (NHS) contracts—, appraisal, clinical excellence awards, and revalidation of approximately 140 medically qualified staff. This involves keeping up to date with the increasingly complex system of medical regulation in the U.K. and liaison with NHS employers.
In 2003 he received the Andrija Stampar medal, awarded by the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region for distinguished contributions to public health in Europe. In 2005 he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by H.M. Queen Elizabeth II for services to healthcare. In 2014 he received the Alwyn Smith prize from the U.K. Faculty of Public Health for outstanding Donabedian prize for contributions to quality in health care. In 2022-2023 he was President of the British Medical Association.
His work is closely linked to policy, both through long term links with major funders and also through the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, of which he is director of research policy. This brings together the School, the London School of Economics, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the European Investment Bank, the European Commission, and a number of European governments and universities. The Observatory is recognized as the principal source of information on healthcare reform in Europe.
He is an author of several reports that have had a major impact on policy in the European Union (on the management of outbreaks of infectious disease that cross borders, the impact of EU law on health care, and the contribution of health to the economy in the EU). His work also links to policy through current or past membership of various advisory boards, including the Open Society (Soros) Foundations (former chair), in New York, the Evaluation Steering Group of the intergovernmental Baltic Sea Task Force, several committees of the European Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO), including the European Advisory Committee on Health Research (former chair), the Task Force on Macroeconomics and Health, and the Health for All Renewal Think Tank.
He is in his third term as a member of the European Commission's Expert Panel on Effective Ways of Investing in Health. He has previously served as a member of one of the U.K. Government's Foresight Programme task forces. He has been a member of numerous Lancet Commissions, including those on the NHS, the Trump administration (only non-North American), Liver Disease, Health and Human Rights, and Commercial Determinants of Health. In 2011 he chaired a review of the Chinese government's health reforms at the request of the State Council. During the COVID pandemic he has served on the U.K. Independent Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (IndependentSAGE), the WHO Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development (chaired by former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and where he was lead rapporteur and chair of the Scientific Advisory Board), and the Commission for a European Health Union (chaired by former EU Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis).
Andrew D. Racine, MD, PhD, FAAP
Andrew D. Racine is the current President of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and has served as the Chief of the Division of General Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine-Children's Hospital at Montefiore since 1998. Before, he was Associate Director of Pediatrics at the Jacobi Medical Center. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and his MD and Ph.D. in Economics from New York University. Racine was an intern and pediatric resident at the Children's Hospital in Boston. He received board certification from the American Board of Pediatrics in 1987.
Racine's clinical interest in general pediatrics concentrates on the health issues confronting infants, children, adolescents and their families in urban environments. He is the Pediatric Medical Director for two practices: The Comprehensive Family Care Center, a federally qualified health center in the east Bronx, and the Family Care Center, a hospital based general practice adjacent to the Children's Hospital at Montefiore. These sites combine an attending-based practice of pediatrics with a resident continuity clinic. Together they provide care for approximately 20,000 patients and their families.
At the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he has an appointment as a Research Associate, Racine has collaborated with other health economists to investigate such topics as trends in infant mortality rates, the economic determinants of child health status, and the role of publicly financed health insurance in accounting for variations in children's health. An active member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Racine has served as the Co-Chair of the Youth Advocacy Committee for Chapters 2 and 3 of District II for several years.
Agnes Binagwaho, MD, M(Ped), PhD
Agnes Binagwaho is a pediatrician and former Minister of Health of Rwanda. She is also Vice Chancellor Emerita of the University of Global Health Equity, a Rwandan initiative of Partners In Health focused on changing the way health care is delivered around the world by training the next generation of global health professionals to deliver equitable, quality health services for all.
Dr. Binagwaho completed her MD at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and her MA in Pediatrics MA at the Universite de Bretagne Occidentale. She was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science from Dartmouth College and earned a Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Rwanda College of Business and Economics.
She worked for 20 years in the public health sector in Rwanda. From 2002 to 2016, she served the Rwandan Health Sector in high-level government positions, first as the Executive Secretary of Rwanda's National AIDS Control Commission, then as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health, and then for five years as Minister of Health. She is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, and a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Global Health Equity.
Dr. Binagwaho serves as Senior Advisor to the Director General of the World Health Organization. Since 2016, she has been a member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, and since 2017 a fellow of the African Academy of Sciences. She has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles.
Walter A. Orenstein, MD
Walter A. Orenstein is a pediatrician and Professor Emeritus in the Emory School of Medicine. He was a former Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, Global Health, and Pediatrics at Emory University; as well as the Associate Director of the Emory Vaccine Center and Director, Emory Vaccine Policy and Development. From 2008 through 2011, Orenstein was Deputy Director for Immunization Programs at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His primary focus at the foundation was on polio eradication, measles control, and improving routine immunization programs.
Prior to 2004, Dr. Orenstein served for 26 years in the Immunization Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From 1988 to 2004, he was the Director of the United States Immunization Program. He is a former Assistant Surgeon General of the USPHS. Orenstein successfully developed, promoted, facilitated and expanded new vaccination strategies to enhance disease prevention.
Dr. Orenstein has authored and co-authored numerous books, journals and reviews. He co-edited Plotkin's Vaccines, 8th edition in 2024 — the leading textbook in the field. He is a past Chair of the World Health Organization's Poliomyelitis Technical Consultative Group. He served as the Chair of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) from 2012 to 2016. He also was a member of the WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization Polio as well as Measles and Rubella Working Groups and the Chair of WHO's Immunization and Vaccines Related Implementation Research Advisory Committee (IVIR-AC). Between 2016 and 2018, Orenstein was the President of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID).
Dr. Orenstein's research focus has been on assessment of vaccine effectiveness in observational studies, methods to overcome vaccine hesitancy, ways to enhance uptake of recommended vaccines, and ways to facilitate polio eradication and sustain that eradication. In addition, Orenstein was also the Principal Investigator for the Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response (Emory-UGA CEIRR), one of five nationals funded by NIH/NIAID with a focus on better understanding pathogenesis, immune responses to vaccines and infection, and viral surveillance in animal populations.
Walter Ricciardi, MD
Walter Ricciardi is Professor of Hygiene and Public Health at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. In 2020-2022 he was Scientific Advisor to the Italian Minister of Health for the coronavirus pandemic. In 2019 he was Head of Department of Woman and Child Health and Public Health of Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli (IRCCS), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Rome, Italy).
In 2019, Dr. Ricciardi was appointed Coordinator of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Human Technopole Foundation; served as President of the Mission Board for Cancer, one of the five major European research and innovation missions of Horizon Europe, European Commission; and received “Laurea Honoris Causa” at Thomas Jefferson University (Philadelphia). Between 2018 and 2022 he was President of the World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA).
In 2017 he was appointed Italian Representative in the Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) and in 2016 he was appointed Principal Investigator of the EC Grant N° 733274 “TO REACH” the first health services and health systems research program funded by the European Commission. In December 2015, he was appointed Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Health Policy, Governance and Leadership at the Institute of Public Health, Medical School, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Rome). From 2015 to 2018 he was President of the Italian National Institute of Health, where he was Commissioner from 2014 to 2015.
In 2013 he was appointed Member of the Expert Panel on effective ways of investing in Health (European Commission, DG—SANCO) and in December 2016 he has been awarded a three-year second mandate. In 2011 he was appointed Member of the European Advisory Committee on Health Research to the WHO European Regional Director and from 2011 to 2014 he was Member of the Executive Board of the U.S. National Board of Medical Examiners of the United States of America. In 2010 he was elected President of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA) and in 2011 he was re-elected for a second term up to 2014. Since 2014 he is Past President of EUPHA. In the years 2003-2006 he was member of the Higher Health Council of the Italian Ministry of Health, and the Italian Minister of Health appointed him Chair of the Public Health Section of the Council itself (2010-2014).
Dr. Ricciardi is editor of the European Journal of Public Health, of the Oxford Handbook of Public Health Practice and Founding Editor of the Italian Journal of Public Health and of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health. Author of over 400 publications in national and international journals. He is also author and co-author of 18 textbooks including a manual on Hygiene and Public Health for medical schools, a text on Hygiene and Social Medicine for the Faculty of Humanities, a text on general hygiene of school and sport, and a manual of health organization and planning.
Mary Ann Chirba, JD, ScD
Mary Ann Chirba is the John C. Ford, S.J. Distinguished Scholar and a health law professor at Boston College Law School. Since joining the faculty in 1984, Chirba has taught a variety of courses, including Law Practice I and II, Legal Reasoning Research & Writing, Federal Health Reform: The Affordable Care Act, Comparative Health Law, Health Care Law and Policy I & II, Advocacy Writing, Advanced Legal Writing, and Product Liability Law.
Chirba holds a faculty appointment with Tufts Medical School through a joint J.D./MPH program with BC Law and is an adjunct professor at New York University Law School. She has lectured on a various health law issues at Harvard Medical School, Boston Children's Hospital, and Brandeis University. In past years, Chirba was an adjunct faculty member at the Harvard School of Public Health, where she taught courses on pharmaceutical product safety, tobacco regulation, current developments in health law, managed care law and regulation, medical malpractice, and risk management.
As the lead author of the two-volume treatise Health Care Reform: Law and Practice - A Comprehensive Guide to the Affordable Care Act and its Implementing Regulations (LexisNexis), Chirba has written and spoken extensively on the Affordable Care Act. She has been invited to present at the World Stem Cell Summit and other domestic and international conferences on Food and Drug Administration and international regulation of adult stem cell therapies and regenerative medicine. She is an advisory board member of the International Federation of Adipose Therapeutics, Cell Therapy Foundation, and Leadership Education in Neuro-Developmental Disabilities Fellowship Program at Boston Children's Hospital.
Chirba holds a B.A. in biology from Colgate University and a J.D., magna cum laude, from Boston College. She holds an Sc.D. in health policy and a M.P.H. from Harvard School of Public Health.
Lisa Sowle Cahill, PhD
Lisa Sowle Cahill received her B.A. in Theology from Santa Clara University in 1970, followed by M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago Divinity School, where she wrote her dissertation under the supervision of Prof. James Gustafson. She is J. Donald Monan Professor in the Department of Theology at Boston College, where she has taught since 1976. She has been a Visiting Scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University, Yale University, and Dharmaram University in Bangalore, India.
Cahill is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has held office in the American Academy of Religion. She was president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the Society of Christian Ethics. She served as an editor, or on the editorial boards of many prestigious journals. In addition, she has been a member of the Catholic Health Association Theology and Ethics Advisory Committee, the National Advisory Board for Ethics in Reproduction, and served on the March of Dimes National Bioethics Committee. She has given testimony to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission on fetal tissue research and on cloning.
Her areas of interest and expertise, and very extensive publications, comprise the whole field of theological ethics. She has written or edited sixteen books, and she is the author of over 200 essays that appeared in books or journals.
Conor M. Kelly, PhD
Conor M. Kelly is Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Associate Professor in the Theology Department at Marquette University. Kelly is a Catholic theological ethicist whose research and teaching focus on moral discernment in ordinary life. He specializes in Catholic social thought, health care ethics, and the theology of Catholic higher education.
He is the author of The Fullness of Free Time: A Theological Account of Leisure and Recreation in the Moral Life (2020); Racism and Structural Sin (2023); and, with Ryan Duns, S.J., Who Will You Become? An Ignatian Introduction to Catholic Theology (2025). He also coedited Poverty: Responding Like Jesus (2018) with Kenneth R. Himes and The Moral Vision of Pope Francis: Expanding the US Reception of the First Jesuit Pope (2024) with Kristin E. Heyer. His academic articles have appeared in Theological Studies, Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, Journal of Catholic Social Thought, and Journal of Catholic Higher Education, among other venues.
Prashant Yadav, PhD
Prashant Yadav is a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is a globally recognized expert in healthcare supply chains and has published extensively on health product manufacturing, procurement, and distribution. Yadav's writing has appeared in major print media outlets, including the Financial Times, The Economist, Nature, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs. He has frequently appeared as a supply chain expert on NPR, BBC, CNN, CBS, and CNBC. His research has received best paper awards from prominent scientific bodies.
Yadav has held faculty positions at the Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires (INSEAD), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Zaragoza Logistics Program, and the University of Michigan. He has also served as a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. Previously, Yadav was the strategy leader for supply chains at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and vice president of healthcare research at the University of Michigan's William Davidson Institute. He currently serves on the boards of various global organizations and social enterprises.
Yadav has provided expert testimony on multiple occasions before the U.S. Congress and other international legislative bodies on medicine supply chain issues. He has also been a member of multiple National Academy of Medicine Expert Committees and has chaired two expert committees.
Yadav earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, an MBA from the Foundation for Organizational Research and Education (FORE) School of Management, and a Ph.D. in Management Science from the University of Alabama.
Stefanie Friedhoff
Stefanie Friedhoff is a German-American journalist and content strategist with 25+ years of experience in international media and higher education. As part of the Brown University School of Public Health leadership team, she oversees the Dean's ongoing special projects and pandemics portfolio, including research collaborations, modeling and data projects, congressional efforts, and crisis communications. She is also the editor of Pandemics Explained, a co-creator of the Preprint Sifter, and leads key media partnerships to translate the latest evidence into practical information for decision-makers and the public. Friedhoff serves as a key strategic advisor on thought leadership and innovation to the Dean.
Prior to Brown, Friedhoff was Director of Content and Strategy at the Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI), where she executed the Institute's vision through the delivery of programs, symposia, strategies, and initiatives, advancing HGHI's academic, research, and policy agenda.
Friedhoff is an expert at creating innovative approaches to engage diverse audiences in critical conversations about the most pressing issues of our time. She has worked as a foreign correspondent, feature writer, editor, and photographer on three continents. Her stories have been published in TIME, The Boston Globe, Geo, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Nieman Reports, and many other publications.
From 2006 to 2014, Friedhoff ran a variety of programs at Harvard's Nieman Foundation for Journalism, where she founded Nieman's Trauma Journalism Program and Global Health Reporting Fellowships, and initiated key conversations among diverse experts and journalists on issues such as Immigration, Election Campaigns, and Covering Violence and Tragedy. She is also the editor of Nieman's first online guide, coveringflu.org. In 2001, Friedhoff was awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard. She currently serves as a senior advisor to the Trust for Trauma Journalism and is a board member at RiffReporter.
Ashley Duggan, PhD
Ashley Duggan is Professor of Health Communication at Boston College and co-director of the BRANCH initiative (Building Research for Advanced Networks in Communication & Health). She holds a professional appointment in Family Medicine research at Tufts University School of Medicine and Fulbright Professor with the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) University of Medicine and Health Sciences.
She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2003. She brings two decades of experience in research, teaching, and mentorship. Her research bridges theory, research methods, and capacity-building for relationship science and human communication in healthcare and medicine/medical education including completing the Building Research Capacity fellowship with the North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) and the Association for Departments of Family Medicine (ADFM).
Duggan brings interdisciplinary leadership including multiple roles with the International Association for Relationship Research (IARR), the National Communication Association (NCA), and the International Communication Association (ICA). Duggan was recently awarded the Berscheid-Hatfield Award for Distinguished Mid-Career Achievement from the International Association for Relationship Research and the Gerald R. Miller Outstanding Book Award for a monograph, awarded 2022 by the Interpersonal Communication Division of the National Communication Association. As a Fulbright scholar with the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) University of Medicine and Health Sciences, she worked with the Centre for Positive Health Sciences to connect relationship science and human communication research with positive health sciences.
Susan J. Kressly, MD, FAAP
Susan J. Kressly served as the 2025 AAP President. Kressly is a general pediatrician and clinical informaticist. She received her medical degree from Temple University School of Medicine and served her residency at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children. Her clinical career spanned more than 30 years in independent practice, including a medical home which she founded in order to better serve her community.
Kressly's career includes championing pediatric health information technology, and working with pediatricians across the country to optimize care delivery, quality, payment and value. She describes herself as a fierce advocate for children and pediatricians.
Andrea Vicini, SJ, MD, PhD, STD
At Boston College, Andrea Vicini, S.J. is the Chair of the Theology Department and Michael P. Walsh Professor of Bioethics, and an affiliate member of the Gloria L. and Charles I. Clough School of Theology and Ministry. M.D. and pediatrician (University of Bologna), he is an alumnus of Boston College (S.T.L. and Ph.D.) and holds an S.T.D. from the Pontifical Faculty of Theology of Southern Italy (Naples).
He held the Boston College Gasson Chair and taught in Italy, Albania, Mexico, Chad, and France. He is co-chair of the international network Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church. His research and publications include theological bioethics, sustainability, global public health, new biotechnologies, and fundamental theological ethics. During the academic year 2015-2016, he had a research fellowship at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, NJ, on the Societal Implications of Astrobiology. Since 2021 he is a Fellow of the Collegium Ramazzini.
James F. Keenan, SJ, STD
At Boston College, James Keenan, S.J. is Vice Provost for Global Engagement, Canisius Professor in the Theology Department, and Director of the Jesuit Institute, and held the Gasson Chair and then the Founders Professorship in Theology. He earned his doctorate from the Gregorian University in Rome and taught at Fordham University and at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology. He was Visiting Professor at Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram (Bangalore), the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome), and Ateneo de Manila University.
He authored and edited over a dozen of books, hundreds of articles and book chapters, and founded and directed the Moral Traditions Series of volumes in theological ethics published by Georgetown University Press.
Globally, he was the founder and co-chair of the network Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church and contributed to organize regional and global conferences and two book series. Member of numerous boards, he was also consultor of the National Catholic Conference of Bishops for the Revision of the Ethical Guidelines for Catholic Health Care Institutions, the New York State Transplant Council, and was Group Leader of the Surgeon General's Task Force on Responsible Sexual Conduct.
Katherine E. Gregory, PhD, RN, FAAN
Katherine E. Gregory is dean of the William F. Connell School of Nursing. Dr. Gregory was previously the associate chief nursing officer, women's and newborn health, research, and innovation at Brigham and Women's Hospital and assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
As a researcher, Dr. Gregory has worked with a diverse set of scientists across multiple disciplines from a wide range of institutions, and has secured both National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Nursing Research funding from 2003 through 2024. In 2009, through the generosity of University Trustee Kathleen Haley and her husband Stephen, Dr. Gregory helped establish the Haley Nurse Scientist Program, a partnership between the Connell School of Nursing and Brigham and Women's that funded clinical nurses at BWH and nursing faculty at CSON to engage in scholarly activities and lead clinical research while strengthening holistic care provided to patients and families. She was selected as the inaugural Haley Nurse Scientist.
More recently, she served as scientific founder of an early-stage company that aims to improve preterm infant nutrition and growth outcomes through software designed to optimize nursing care and clinical workflows, resulting in a patent issued in 2020. She has helped to raise significant funding for the venture, while gaining invaluable experience in nurse-led innovation and entrepreneurship.
Dr. Gregory earned her B.S. from The State University of New York at Binghamton, her M.S. and a minor in health care management from the University of Pennsylvania, and her Ph.D. from Boston College.
Gautam N. Yadama, PhD
Gautam N. Yadama is Professor and the Dean of Boston College School of Social Work. His research is focused on understanding poverty and environment dynamics, and interventions to address the attendant social, economic, environment, and health outcomes. He has implemented a randomized control trial to study the sustainability of new and efficient energy technologies in rural India to reduce household air pollution and improve health and wellbeing of women and children.
His book, Fires, Fuel & the Fate of 3 Billion: State of the Energy Impoverished (Oxford University Press), outlines an argument for transdisciplinary research to tackle complex problems such as household air pollution that reside at the intersections of poverty, environment, and health. He is using social network analysis and community-based system dynamics to study how interventions to reduce pollution are adopted and sustained by the poor in rural India. He is a member of the Implementation Science Network on Clean Cooking at the Fogarty Institute of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Odette Lienau, JD, PhD
Odette Lienau joined Boston College Law School in January 2023 as the inaugural Marianne D. Short, Esq., Dean, having previously served as a professor of law and former associate dean for faculty research and intellectual life at Cornell University Law School.
As dean, she has strengthened BC Law's mission of providing a stellar legal education grounded in service to the greater good, including through record faculty hiring and support; programmatic, quality of life, and facilities improvements; increased international engagement; and expanded placement efforts and alumni involvement.
Under Dean Lienau's leadership, BC Law has launched two new degree programs, a Master of Legal Studies (MLS) in Cybersecurity, Risk, and Governance, and a highly selective Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD). The School has hired twenty outstanding new faculty members over the past few years, and restructured its faculty services and publication support efforts to further strengthen the School's academic reputation. Under her tenure, BC Law has moved up seventeen spots in the US News & World Report rankings to #20, and graduate employment results have hit all-time highs.
Dean Lienau also has worked hard to engage larger portions of an already dedicated and passionate alumni base. As part of the University's Soaring Higher campaign, the School announced an ambitious goal to raise “$100 million for 100 years,” a nod to its upcoming Centennial Celebration in 2029. Over the past two years, BC Law has hit the highest annual fundraising achievements in its history.
Dean Lienau has overseen numerous facilities improvements, from classroom renovations and revamped shared spaces to art installations, enhancing the campus's role as a “second home” for students to engage in both community gatherings and quiet focus. The School has right-sized its incoming class to improve the classroom experience and student support, resulting in the most accomplished and diverse student body in BC Law's history, coinciding with all-time high application volumes. Through this, she has remained squarely focused on retaining the uniquely collaborative and collegial nature of the student and faculty community—a hallmark of the BC Law experience.
Dean Lienau's research and teaching interests center on international economic law, international law and international relations, and political and legal theory. Her first book, Rethinking Sovereign Debt: Politics, Reputation, and Legitimacy in Modern Finance, won an American Society of International Law Book Award. Her research and related articles have appeared in many distinguished publications, including the Harvard International Law Journal, Yale Journal of International Law, and Oxford University Press, among others. She has served as a consultant and expert for the United Nations Conference on Trade & Development (UNCTAD), the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, among other organizations, and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Dean Lienau practiced with the Financial Restructuring and Insolvency group at Shearman & Sterling in New York City prior to joining Cornell Law School and has taught at Harvard and Yale Law Schools. She received her A.B. from Harvard College, her J.D. from NYU School of Law, and her Ph.D. in political science at Harvard University, where her dissertation received the University's Charles Sumner Prize.
Daniel J. Daly, PhD
Daniel J. Daly is Associate Professor of Moral Theology at the Gloria L. and Charles I. Clough School of Theology and Ministry (CSTM) and the founding Executive Director of the Center for Theology and Ethics in Catholic Health. The Center is sponsored by the Catholic Health Association and provides theological and ethical guidance to Catholic healthcare. He is the co-host of the podcast Ethics on Call.
Dr. Daly earned his Ph.D. in Theological Ethics at Boston College in 2008. Before joining the CSTM he was Associate Professor of Theology at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, NH. He served as the Theology department chair for five of his thirteen years at Saint Anselm.
His academic work focuses on healthcare ethics, virtue ethics, and the ethics of social structures.
His 2021 monograph, The Structures of Virtue and Vice (Georgetown University Press) was awarded 2022 First Place in the Theological and Philosophical Studies category by the Catholic Media Association.
Douglas W. Comeau, DO
Douglas W. Comeau is a physician specializing in orthopedic surgery and sports medicine. He was appointed director of Boston College University Health Services and Primary Care Sports Medicine in 2020.
Dr. Comeau earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry-biochemistry at Colby College and a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine. After graduating from the Tufts University Family Medicine Residency program, he served as a fellow in primary care sports medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. He then served as Medical Director of Sports Medicine at the Ryan Center for Sports Medicine at Boston University and Boston Medical Center and was also a consultant to Boston College University Health Services and consultant team physician. Following his appointment as Director of University Health Services in 2020, he led Boston College's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As Director of University Health Services, Dr. Comeau provides Boston College students with both inpatient and outpatient medical services as well as access to board-certified physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, and on-site specialty consultants through the BC Primary Care Center. He has overseen development of a new model of student health care at Boston College, in which primary care sports medicine is now fully integrated with University Health Services, thus allowing all student-athletes—whether in club sports, intramurals, or intercollegiate programs—to receive their primary medical care through University Health Services.
In addition to multiple professional experience and activities, which include serving as finish line medical tent physician at the Boston Marathon and medical director for the Boston Triathlon, Dr. Comeau holds academic appointments as a clinical associate professor of family medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine and a lecturer at Tufts School of Medicine. He also serves on the national committee for the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine and was on the national committee for the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Erik Owens, PhD
At Boston College, Erik Owens is Director of the International Studies Program, Professor of the Practice in Theology in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, and affiliate faculty in the Formative Education Department of the Lynch School of Education and Human Development. He also serves as Director of the Program on Global Ethics and Social Trust, an international project based at Boston College that brings faculty together across disciplinary and institutional boundaries to address the ethical dimensions of urgent global issues and the implications for our academic, political, and religious communities.
Bridging the fields of religious ethics, political philosophy, and education, Owens' research explores a variety of intersections between religion and public life, with particular attention to issues of citizenship in global contexts and the challenge of fostering the common good in religiously diverse societies.
He is the co-editor of three books: Gambling: Mapping the American Moral Landscape; Religion and the Death Penalty: A Call for Reckoning; and The Sacred and the Sovereign: Religion and International Politics, the last of which was called a “must read” by the journal Foreign Affairs. He has also published a number of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia articles, as well as essays for the general public.
Owens teaches interdisciplinary courses on ethics and religion in international politics; religion in American public life (including religion in public schools); global citizenship; and political theologies of citizenship. He has also taught BC courses abroad in South Africa (Religion, Justice and Reconciliation) and Croatia (Political and Theological Dimensions of Sovereignty; Ethics, Religion and International Affairs).
At the American Academy of Religion (AAR), Owens served on the Committee on the Public Understanding of Religion (2013-2019) and was twice appointed its chair (2017-2019). In that capacity he founded the AAR's Public Scholars Project in partnership with the Religious Freedom Center and other academic centers and non-partisan institutions. He has also served on the steering committee and as co-chair of the AAR's Religion and Politics section and its “Religion and Public Schools: International Perspectives” program unit.
He received his Ph.D. in religious ethics from the University of Chicago, an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, and a B.A. from Duke University.
This Call for Posters invites undergraduate and graduate students at Boston College to submit posters on topics in public health for the conference on “Vaccines, Ethics, and the Common Good” to be held at Boston College on Friday, September 18, 2026, in the Heights Room, Corcoran Commons. This conference will be hosted jointly by the program in Global Public Health and the Common Good of the William F. Connell School of Nursing, the Global Observatory on Planetary Health of the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society, and the Theology Department of the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, in collaboration with the Gloria L. and Charles I. Clough School of Theology and Ministry, the School of Social Work, and the Law School.
Childhood immunization in the United States is in crisis. Immunization rates are at their lowest levels in two generations. Measles, pertussis and influenza are resurgent in American children. In 2025, there were 2,289 confirmed measles cases with 3 deaths, and more than 28,000 cases of pertussis with 16 deaths. In 2026, there have been more than 2,300 measles cases through late July. Return of poliomyelitis, congenital rubella syndrome, and other, long vanquished vaccine-preventable diseases is a real possibility.
The conference will bring together a distinguished group of scholars—from Boston College, across the United States, and internationally—in medicine, public health, ethics, law, public policy, and theology to examine the current vaccine crisis, review its historical and philosophical origins, consider the balance between personal choice and the common good, and develop a nuanced, ethically informed strategy for childhood immunization that moves beyond the current, highly polarized debate, builds vaccine demand, and emphasizes vaccine equity. We recognize that carefully crafted communications that build vaccine demand will be key to disseminating such a strategy. The conference will therefore close with a discussion of approaches to communication and outreach that can bring all Americans together with the shared goal of safeguarding our children’s health.
The Posters should present research or findings or reflections or artistic productions related to topics in public health. Up to 30 posters will be selected with priority given to posters addressing topics relevant to childhood immunization. Selected posters will be displayed in the Boston Room and Newton Room adjacent to the Heights Room in Corcoran Commons. Two poster sessions are scheduled: during lunch (12:15–1:00 PM) and during the closing reception (6:00–7:00 PM).
Requirements for poster submission:
- Prepare the poster as a PDF.
- High resolution.
- PDF size should be close to 36" x 48".
- The deadline to submit the pdf of the poster is Tuesday, September 1, 2026, at 12:00 noon.
- Please send the pdf of your poster both to Phillip J. Landrigan (phil.landrigan@bc.edu) and Andrea Vicini, SJ (andrea.vicini@bc.edu).
- Actual printing of posters will be done off site; late submissions will not be accepted. The students who submitted the pdf of their posters will be notified of their acceptance or not by email on Friday, September 11, 2026, before 12:00 noon.
- Accepted poster: Students are invited to record and submit a short video presentation of their poster (1'–2' max) to Andrea Vicini, SJ. Students' video presentations will be posted on the conference website.
- The accepted posters will be printed on foam board 36" x 48" and mounted on easels.
Thanks to the generosity of our benefactors, the organizing committee will pay for the printing of the accepted posters.
Lindsey Camp, PhD, MPH, RN
Lindsey Camp is an assistant professor of the practice at the Boston College Connell School of Nursing. Camp completed her graduate training at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her undergraduate degree at Bellarmine University. Her program of research focuses on health communication for chronic disease prevention and management, particularly among adolescent and young adult cancer survivors (AYAs). Her research is currently focused on: (1) optimizing communication approaches to engage AYAs in behavioral interventions post-treatment and (2) developing supportive care programs for AYAs transitioning from active treatment to survivorship care.
Camp teaches courses in evidence-based practice and population health, and she is a member of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, the Society of Behavioral Medicine, and the Oncology Nursing Society.
Ashley Holmes Longacre, PhD, MPH
Ashley (Holmes) Longacre is an assistant professor of the practice at the Boston College Connell School of Nursing and an epidemiologist. Much of her training focused on statistical and epidemiologic methods, including the measurement, analysis, and interpretation of dietary and cancer data. Her dissertation research suggested that inflammation may be an underlying mechanism through which diet may act to modulate the development of colorectal neoplasms. Longacre also worked with collaborators in Denmark to publish the first population-based descriptive data on colorectal cancer recurrence risk, which could be used to guide the type and extent of adjuvant therapy and follow-up plans in certain patient groups.
Most recently, she served as an epidemiologist within the Bureau of Substance Addiction Services for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) and JSI Research and Training Institute. At MDPH, she developed several data collection tools for substance addiction programs serving schools, at-risk youth, individuals receiving medications for opioid use disorder, and individuals in recovery. Longacre received her Ph.D. from Emory University, M.P.H. from George Washington University, and B.A. from Duke University.