Faculty Profile
S.
Malia Fullerton, PhD
Stephanie Malia Fullerton, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical History and Ethics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She received a Postgraduate Diploma (M.Sc.) in Human Biology and a DPhil in Human Population Genetics from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. She recently completed postdoctoral training in the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of human genetics research at the Rock Ethics Institute of the Pennsylvania State University.
Dr. Fullerton served as a University Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Department of Anthropology, University of Durham, UK, from 1995 to 1998, before returning to the US to pursue population genetics research focused on identifying genetic contributions to cardiovascular disease, at Penn State University, and non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, at the University of Chicago, from 1998 to 2002. Her scientific publications have focused on the description and interpretation of DNA sequence variation in specific human genes, and the relationship of that variation to human evolutionary history and susceptibility to common complex disease. In 2002, she was awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Human Genome Research Institute to re-train in ethical and social aspects of human genetics at Penn State University. Her research in this area has focused on the epistemological, ethical, and historical phenomena underlying contemporary scientists' understandings of population-level genetic variation and its relation to disease predisposition and health status. Her broad research interests include scientific decision-making, the relationship of basic research to clinical research and practice (especially as it pertains to use of racial and/or ethnic identification), and research ethics.