Rebecca L. Walker

Rebecca L. Walker is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy (College of Arts and Sciences) and a Professor of Social Medicine in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also serves as Core Faculty in the Center for Bioethics and is an Adjunct Professor in Public Policy. Her research focuses on biomedical ethics, particularly animal research, phase I clinical trials, and genomic ethics. Dr. Walker holds a Greenwall Foundation post-doctoral fellowship in bioethics and health policy (completed in 2001), and has held visiting faculty positions at the University of Michigan. She teaches courses on bioethics, virtue ethics, and the philosophy of medicine at both undergraduate and graduate levels, and contributes to the medical school curriculum in social and health systems.

Her academic leadership roles include serving on UNC’s Animal Care and Use Committee, co-directing the Hospital Ethics Service’s education program, and leading NIH-funded grants such as the CMORE project on healthy volunteer research ethics. She is a Hastings Center Fellow (2021) and has authored/co-edited influential works like Of Mice and Primates: Virtue Ethics and Animal Research (2025) and The Social Medicine Reader (2019).

Dr. Walker’s research spans ethical issues in biotechnology, distributive justice in healthcare, and the moral status of nonhuman animals. Her recent projects include a study on correctional health care providers’ professional challenges and a National Human Genome Research Institute grant examining incidental enhancements in gene editing technologies. She actively engages in policy debates around genomic screening, animal welfare, and translational research ethics.

Her awards and recognitions include the Hastings Center Fellowship, which acknowledges her contributions to ethical scholarship in health, science, and technology. Her work bridges philosophical theory with applied ethics, emphasizing virtue ethics and interdisciplinary collaboration across medicine, policy, and the social sciences.