Leah Pierson, MD, PhD

[email protected] · www.leahpierson.com

* indicates co-first author

Employment

Brigham and Women's Hospital2025 – 2028

Internal Medicine Residency Program (Management and Leadership Pathway)

NIH Department of Bioethics2016 – 2018

Pre-doctoral Fellowship

Education

Harvard Medical School2018 – 2025

MD with Honors in Ethics, magna cum laude

Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Program

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health2020 – 2023

PhD, Department of Global Health and Population

Dissertation: Ethics Amidst Uncertainty: Essays on Global Health Priority Setting

Committee: Stéphane Verguet, Ole F. Norheim, and Regina Schouten

Brown University2012 – 2016

BA, independent major in Human Rights with Honors, magna cum laude

Grants, Fellowships, and Awards

Sissela Bok Ethics and Population Research Prize2024
Oxford Global Priorities Fellowship2023
Amplify Creative Grant for podcast, Bio(un)ethical2023
Edmond & Lily Safra Center Graduate Fellowship in Ethics2022 – 2023
Apollo Academic Surveys grant for the Views in Bioethics Survey2022
Long-Term Future Fund grant for the Views in Bioethics Survey2022
Petrie-Flom Center Student Fellowship2021 – 2022
Forethought Fellowship for Global Priorities Research2021 – 2023
American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities Annual Student Paper Award2021
Harvard University Presidential Scholarship2018 – 2021

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Iyer AA, Pierson L, and Schwartzstein RM. Steadying the Medical Education Pendulum—The Need for Experimental Studies. JAMA Internal Medicine, 2026.
Millum J, Aguilera B, Bhaumik S, Galvagni E, Littler K, Munung NS, Pierson L, and Pratt B. The Imperative to Embed Ethics in Health Research Priority-setting. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, forthcoming.
Pierson L, Gibert S, Orszag L, Sullivan H, Fei YR, Largent E, and Persad G. Bioethicists' Perspectives on Ethical Research: Results of the Views in Bioethics Survey. Ethics & Human Research, 2026.
Millum J, Aguilera B, Atuire C, Bhaumik S, Munung NS, Pierson L, and Pratt B. WHO Guidance on the Ethics of Health Research Priority Setting. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2025.
Millum J, Aguilera B, Atuire C, Bhaumik S, Munung NS, Pierson L, and Pratt B. The Ethics of Health Research Priority Setting: A Casebook. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2025.
Persad G, Largent EA, Gibert S, Orszag L, and Pierson L. Bioethicists Tomorrow: Identity, Inclusiveness, and Future Directions. The American Journal of Bioethics, 2025.
Pierson L, Gibert S, Orszag L, Sullivan H, Fei YR, Largent E, and Persad G. Bioethicists Today: Results of the Views in Bioethics Survey. The American Journal of Bioethics, 2024.
Pierson L. Accounting for Future Populations in Health Research. Bioethics, 2024.
Pierson L and Verguet S. When Should Global Health Actors Prioritize More Uncertain Interventions? The Lancet Global Health, 2023.
Mintz R*, Pierson L*, and Miller DG. Rethinking Professionalism Assessments in Medical Education. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2022.
Pierson L and Millum J. Health Research Priority Setting: Do Grant Review Processes Reflect Ethical Principles? Global Public Health, 2021.
Miller DG, Pierson L, Doernberg S. The Role of Medical Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2020.
Pierson L*, Gibert S*, Berkman B, Danis M, and Millum J. The Allocation of Scarce Biospecimens for Use in Research. Journal of Medical Ethics, 2020.
Pierson L and Millum J. Response to Open Peer Commentaries on "Health Research Priority Setting: The Duties of Individual Funders." The American Journal of Bioethics, 2019.
Pierson L and Millum J. Health Research Priority-Setting: The Duties of Individual Funders. The American Journal of Bioethics, 2018.

Op-Eds, Commentaries, and Letters

Iyer AA, Pierson L, and Schwartzstein RM. Evidence-based trainee selection—reply. JAMA Internal Medicine, 2026.
Pierson L. Why we need to experiment on pregnant women. The Argument, 2025.
Miller DG and Pierson L. Addressing cost-related non-adherence is a shared obligation. The American Journal of Bioethics, 2025.
Pierson L and Pierson E. Philanthropic foundations must step in to shield science from Trump's cuts. Nature, 2025. (Longer version here.)
Pierson L and Tsai B. Misaligned AI constitutes a growing public health threat. BMJ, 2023.
Pierson L and Sullivan H. Harvard should protect whistleblowers. The Harvard Crimson, 2023.
Pierson L and Pierson E. Patients cannot consent to care unless they know how much it costs. BMJ, 2022.
Sullivan H and Pierson L. With students remote, universities should put COVID-19 testing capacity to good use. The Boston Globe, 2022.
Pierson L and Pierson E. Genetic risks for cancer should not mean financial hardship. The New York Times, 2021.
Pierson L, Pierson M, Steinhardt J, and Pierson E. Incarceration and COVID-19 (letter to the editor). Health Affairs, 2021.
Pierson L and Millum J. Disease prevalence and the magnitude of research benefits. The American Journal of Bioethics, 2018.
Pierson L and Millum J. The limits of research institutions in setting research priorities. Journal of Medical Ethics, 2017.
Pierson E and Pierson L. What do campus protesters really want? The New York Times, 2015.

Podcasts, Interviews, and Blogs

The first two seasons of Bio(un)ethical, a bioethics podcast I co-founded with Sophie Gibert, can be accessed online. Bio(un)ethical is ranked in the top 10% of podcasts globally. (Article about it here.)
WBUR (NPR Boston) interview: Why a Boston doctor says we need to test medicines during pregnancy.
My blog posts, including those written for the Petrie-Flom Center's Bill of Health Blog, are available on my website.
Annals on Call Podcast: Professionalism (Robert M. Centor interviews Rachel Mintz and me).

Works in Progress

Pierson L. Rethinking public engagement in health care priority setting. (Revised for Bioethics.)
Pierson L. On Z: Insight from inexperience. (Revised for Academic Medicine.)
Pierson L and Iyer A. Moral Physicians, Not Moral Philosophers: Moral Negligence and Ethics Education in U.S. Medical Schools.

Invited and Peer-Reviewed Talks

Pierson L. The Process is Not the Point: Moral Uncertainty and Procedural Justice in Health Care Priority Setting. Critical Perspectives on Democratic Deliberation in Health and Science Policy, 2025.
Hausman D, Asada Y, and Pierson L. How Health Care Can Be Cost-Effective and Fair: Author Meets Critics. The Politics, Philosophy, and Economics Society: Eighth Annual Meeting, 2024.
Pierson L and Gibert S. Eight Lessons from Eight Years in Bioethics. Plenary talk at the National Student Bioethics Association Annual Conference, 2024.
Pierson L. Accounting for Future Populations in Health Research. Politics, Philosophy, and Economics Society Annual Meeting, 2023.
Pierson L. Picking Research Projects that Matter. Effective Altruism Global: Boston, 2023.
Pierson L. Rethinking Public Engagement in Health Care Priority Setting. American Society of Bioethics and the Humanities Annual Meeting, 2023.
Pierson L. Results of the Views in Bioethics Survey. American Society of Bioethics and the Humanities Annual Meeting, 2023.
Millum J, Pierson L, Atuire C, and Pratt B. A Framework for Health Research Priority Setting. Oxford Global Health & Bioethics Conference, 2023.
Pierson L. Accounting for Future Populations in Health Research. American Society of Bioethics and the Humanities Annual Meeting, 2022.
Pierson L. Should Global Health Actors Prioritize More Certain Interventions? World Congress of Bioethics, 2022.
Pierson L. Accounting for Future Populations in Health Research Priority Setting. 10th Oxford Workshop on Global Priorities Research, 2022.
Pierson L. Accounting for Future Populations in Health Research. Oxford Global Health & Bioethics Conference, 2022.
Pierson L and Gibert S. Should I Skip the Line? A Decision Framework for Individuals Seeking Scarce Health Resources. American Society of Bioethics and the Humanities Annual Meeting, 2021.
Pierson L and Doernberg S. Should Health Professions Students Receive Priority Access to the COVID-19 Vaccine? Ethics of Medicine Speaker Series, University of Nebraska Omaha, 2021.
Pierson L and Verguet S. The Ethics of Extended Cost-Effectiveness Analysis. American Society of Bioethics and the Humanities Annual Meeting, 2019.
Pierson L and Millum J. Health Research Priority Setting: How Are Allocation Decisions Really Made? Oxford University Global Health & Bioethics Conference, 2019.
Pierson L and Millum J. Health Research Priority Setting: How Are Allocation Decisions Really Made? American Society of Bioethics and the Humanities Annual Meeting, 2018.
Pierson L and Millum J. What Duties Do Health Research Funders Have to Populations in Need of Research? American Society of Bioethics and the Humanities Annual Meeting, 2017.
Pierson L, Millum J, Gelinas L, and Pratt B. How Should We Set Priorities for Health Research? American Society of Bioethics and the Humanities Annual Meeting, 2017.

Teaching

Ethical Basis of the Practice of Public Health (TA, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)2023
Medical Ethics and Professionalism (Section Co-Leader, Harvard Medical School)2022, 2023
Health Policy (Section Co-Leader, Harvard Medical School)2023
Introductory Statistics for Social Research (TA, Brown University)2016

Recent Service

Co-guest editing (with Nir Eyal and Mark Sheehan) a special issue of the journal Bioethics: Critical Perspectives on Democratic Deliberation in Health and Science Policy.
Co-organized Critical Perspectives on Democratic Deliberation in Health and Science Policy Conference (Oxford, UK, 2025).
Elected to serve as one of two class representatives for Harvard's MD-PhD entering class of 2018.