Dan W. Brock

Dan W. Brock, of Newton, Mass.; Sept. 26. Charles C. Tillinghast, Jr. University Professor and professor emeritus in philosophy. Professor Brock joined the philosophy department at Brown in 1969, where he became professor of philosophy and biomedical ethics and director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics. He was chair of the department from 1980 to 1986 and eventually received a joint appointment in the medical school. During his 33 years at Brown, he established himself as a leading authority in bioethics and medical ethics. He served as staff philosopher on the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine in 1981 and in 1993 was a member of the Ethics Working Group of the Clinton Task Force on National Health Reform. He left Brown in 2002 to join the department of clinical bioethics at the National Institutes of Health as senior scientist and head of the section on public health. In 2004, he became the Frances Glessner Lee Professor of Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School. He served as an advisor to the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress, the Institute of Medicine, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and the World Health Organization. Over the course of his career, he authored six books and more than 150 articles establishing a high standard of analytical rigor in bioethics. He was president of the American Association of Bioethics and a founding board member of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. He was an avid reader and is survived by his wife, Chon, formerly known as Charlene Stephens ’62; a daughter; and two sons, including David ’02.