Deborah Barnbaum is Professor and Health Care Ethics Coordinator in the Department of Philosophy. She received her BA in Philosophy and English from UCLA in 1990 and her MA and PhD in Philosophy from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1993 and 1996, respectively. She is a bioethicist specializing in the ethics of clinical research and the ethics of autism. 

Her books include:

1. Sellars and Contemporary Philosophy (co-edited with David Pereplyotchik, Routledge, 2017)
2. The Ethics of Autism (Indiana University Press, 2009)
3. Research Ethics, Text and Readings (with Michael Byron, Prentice Hall 2001)

Her most cited articles include:

1. Interpreting Surrogate Consent Using Counterfacutals, Journal of Applied Philosophy 6:2 (1999), 167–172.
2. Teaching Empathy in Medical Ethics: The Use of Lottery Assignments, Teaching Philosophy 24:1 (2001), 63–75.  Winner of the Mark Lenssen Prize
3. Making More Sense of Minimal Risk, IRB: Ethics & Human Research 24:3 (May-June 2002), 10–13.

She serves on numerous data safety monitoring boards for clinical trials, including The Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network, The Pulmonary Trials Cooperative, the ADAPT Trial (Approaches and Decisions in Acute Pediatric TBI Trial), and the CALEC for LSCD trial (Cultivated Autologous Limbal Epithelial Cells Transplantation in Treatment of Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency). At Kent State she most often teaches Health Care Ethics (PHIL 4/50005) and Medicine and Morality (PHIL 30015). Her current research is on ethical monitoring of clinical trials.