Class of 1940 First Chair, Co-Director Kavli Center for Ethics, Science and the Public

Research Bio

Jodi Halpern. M.D., Ph.D holds a University Chair and is Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities at the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. Her work brings together psychiatry, philosophy, affective forecasting and decision neuroscience to elucidate how people imagine and influence their own and each other's future health possibilities. Her book, From Detached Concern to Empathy: Humanizing Medical Practice was called a “seminal work” by the Journal of the American Medical Association. Her upcoming book Remaking the Self in the Wake of Loss examines the role of empathy in post -traumatic growth. Dr. Halpern's research articles focus on innovative technologies and ethics. She co-founded and is the Co-Director of the Kavli Center for Ethics, Science and the Public and leads the Berkeley Group for the Ethics and Regulation of Innovative Technology. Her current book project "Engineering Empathy" examines how AI-simulated empathy is changing personal and therapeutic relationships.  She is engaged in policy, currently in creating guardrails to protect minors from risks associated with companion chatbots.  She advised the California Senate on SB 243 which became the first law requiring chatbot companies to collect and report data on associated suicidality.  Recent media interviews include NPR, KQED, ABC, PBS, CBC, France 5, Wired, the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, and New Scientist. Halpern is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards including the Greenwall Faculty Scholars Fellowship, the Rockefeller Fellowship at Princeton and the 2022 Guggenheim Award in Health and Medicine.  Halpern’s scholarship investigating empathic curiosity for therapeutic impact and to bridge societal divides is recognized worldwide, and in 2024 she received the Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award in Empathy and Healthcare from The International Network for Empathy in Healthcare.https://youtu.be/fsn8jyfmsn8

Research Expertise and Interest

AI and ethics, empathy, bioethics, public health

In the News

How CRISPR Is Changing the Role of Researchers

A new paper in the journal Ethics and Human Research co-authored by Berkeley Public Health Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities Jodi Halpern and Lecturer Sharon E. O’Hara, among others, explores how scientists perceive the potential of CRISPR technology and how the transition of many researchers from bench science (making new discoveries in the lab) to translational science (using these new discoveries to create novel medical treatments) may affect the treatment of those with genetic conditions.

Can we replace human empathy in healthcare?

In a May 2021 paper published in the journal AI & Society, clinical empathy expert and Berkeley Public Health bioethics professor Jodi Halpern, MD, PhD, posits that artificial intelligence (AI) cannot replace human empathy in the healthcare setting and that empathy is key to the successful treatment of patients.

Researcher takes on ‘empathy fatigue’ in the workplace

A nurse refuses to help an ailing alcoholic who is upset to find a hospital detox unit closed. A hospital clerk brushes off a deceased woman’s grieving family as they try to pay her bills and claim her belongings. A charge nurse keeps the mother of gunshot victim from seeing her son, saying the emergency room is “too busy.” These harsh, real-life scenarios helped inspire Eve Ekman, a UC Berkeley doctoral student in social welfare, to study empathy burnout in the workplace, a condition expected to skyrocket this year due to the stress caused by the nation’s financial crisis.

Loading Class list ...