Benjamin Wilfond, MD

Benjamin S. Wilfond, MD, is a pulmonologist and professor, Division of Bioethics & Palliative Care and Pulmonary & Sleep Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine. He is core faculty for the Institute for Public Health Genetics and an adjunct professor in the Department of Bioethics and Humanities.

Dr. Wilfond has made scholarship contributions supporting the experience of families of children profound disabilities; understanding the impact of newborn screening, carrier testing, and genetic testing on children and families; and developing ethical approaches to conducting research on medical practices. He has more than 30 years of experience as a research ethics consultant and contributed to the development of this emerging practice through leadership, scholarship, and service.

He founded and is former division chief of Bioethics and Palliative Care and former director of the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics and Palliative Care Seattle Children’s Research Institute, the first such programs in the U.S. established in 2006. In 1998, founded the National Human Genome Research Institute Intramural Bioethics Core and its IRB. In 2014, he founded the Clinical Research Ethics Consultation Collaborative, a national network to advance research bioethics consultation practice. In 2023, he founded the Trisomy 13 and 18 Collaborative, a national imitative to support research and education to improve the experiences of families as they navigate health care systems.

Dr. Wilfond is a co-editor of Challenging Cases in Clinical Research Ethics, Taylor and Francis (2024). He is fellow of the Hastings Center and a member of the editorial boards of the Hastings Center Report and Ethics and Human Research. He is a past president of the Association of Bioethics Program Directors and has served on the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Bioethics, American Society of Human Genetics Social Issues Committee, American Thoracic Society Bioethics Taskforce, Canadian Institutes of Health Research Standing Committee on Ethics, and the FDA Pediatrics Advisory Committee.

Dr. Wilfond attended Muhlenberg College, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, and completed his postgraduate training at the University of Wisconsin. He has held faculty appointments at the University of Arizona, National Institutes of Health, and Johns Hopkins University.