Finding Our Footing When the Ground Shakes: The Importance of Integrity in Science and Scientists

Science is facing unimagined challenges from many different directions.

In the Fall Research Integrity and Scholarly Excellence (RISE) Lecture Series event, Josh Fessel, a physician-scientist, will provide a personal reflection and answer the question -- What do I do and what do we do?

Earlier this year Fessel resigned from his position as the National Institutes of Health Chief Medical Officer due to his conflict with directives that he believed compromised scientific integrity. 

Learn how this experience shaped his perspective on the importance of scholarly integrity in higher education research.

An informal Q&A with Fessel will be held in Steger Hall Auditorium from 9:30 – 10:30 a.m., prior to the RISE lecture.

Speaker

Josh Fessel

Physician-Scientist

Josh Fessel is a physician-scientist who had a broad experience spanning pulmonary and critical care medicine, pharmacology, molecular metabolism, and data science. Formerly the Chief Medical Officer at the National Institutes of Health, his work covers every phase of research—from basic to translational to clinical to population studies—and extends across academia, federal government, and public-private partnerships. Fessel is passionate about breaking down silos to unify the scientific and public health enterprise and amplify its impact.

Fessel earned his Ph.D. in pharmacology and completed clinical training in internal medicine, pulmonary medicine, and critical care medicine at Vanderbilt University, where he later served as an assistant professor of medicine, pharmacology, and cancer biology. At Vanderbilt, he led a basic and early translational lab focused on redox biology, molecular metabolism, and mitochondrial biology in complex disease phenotypes, while also caring for veterans at the Nashville VA Medical Center.

He then joined the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute as a medical officer overseeing the pulmonary vascular disease portfolio, expanding his work to include data science and taking leadership roles in the National Institutes of Health’s coordinated response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fessel later moved to the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), first as senior clinical advisor to the Clinical and Translational Science Awards program and then as NCATS’s chief medical officer and director of the Office of Translational Medicine.

RISE Lecture Series

Each semester, the Division of Scholarly Integrity and Research Compliance invites a notable scholar or subject matter expert to share their ideas on ethical issues that are shaping the future of scholarship and the research enterprise. The goal of the Research Integrity and Scholarly Excellence (RISE) Lecture Series is to foster ethical scholarship, explore a diversity of perspectives about the roles and responsibilities of scholars and researchers, and reflect on the ethical impact of our work in the modern world.