2023-2024 Bioethics Scholars

Class of 2025

Aarah Ali

Aarah is currently a junior at Kent Place and has been a part of the community since kindergarten. She was inspired to join Bioethics this year due to her interest in various medical systems and their effects on individual patients. This year, Aarah focused her Bioethics studies on investigating mental capacity, specifically for patients with terminal illnesses. She questioned current legal standards of mental capacity and whether patient agreement with a doctor’s professional opinion was relevant to the determination of mental capacity. This year, Aarah has been able to expand her knowledge and hone her analytical skills. She has enjoyed discussions with her classmates and teachers about various ethical dilemmas, and having the opportunity to share her thoughts. Aarah is so grateful to have been a part of this program and for the opportunity to explore the topic of Bioethics.

Class of 2025

Tanseem Arampulikan

Tanseem is a current junior at Kent Place and has attended since the seventh grade. Her love and interest in ethics stems from the ethics courses she took in middle school and from watching previous Bioethics presentations. Tanseem felt drawn to this year’s Bioethics theme, “Re-imagining The Medical Industrial Complex”, as it allowed her to pursue her passion for exploring the ethical complexities of healthcare delivery in the United States as well as the emergence of various innovative technologies. To explore the issues surrounding these topics, Tanseem chose her Bioethics project to focus on the integration of artificial intelligence and wearable technology for preventative cardiovascular health. She specifically analyzed the ethical benefits and costs, looking at the expansive benefits of this technology in terms of accessibility and patient autonomy, while weighing the costs of privacy and accountability issues. Tanseem is very grateful for her Bioethics class and will use the skills and knowledge acquired in her future career and beyond. 

Class of 2026

Ava Builione

Ava is currently a sophomore at Kent Place and has attended the school for six years. She has looked forward to having the opportunity to participate in the Bioethics Project since seventh grade, when she heard about it. Her passion for ethics and aspirations to pursue a career in medicine make this course the perfect interdisciplinary mix for her. Ava was interested in many facets of the medical-industrial complex, making it difficult to pick just one area of interest, but ultimately landed on researching the ethics of creating a compensation-based system to ease the worldwide organ crisis. In an effort to come to a conclusion on the subject, she dove into the ethical frameworks of consequentialism and virtue ethics to unpack many of the ethical issues that arise. She is incredibly grateful for the unique opportunity that she was given in the Bioethics Project and will cherish the knowledge that she gained as she continues to study and ultimately pursues a career in the future.

Class of 2025

Louisa Gordon

Louisa is a current junior at Kent Place. She joined the Kent Place community in 8th grade. After watching the Bioethics Symposium in 8th grade, Louisa became highly interested in the Bioethics Project. Louisa’s interest in psychology led her to focus on the ethics of forced psychiatric care for New York City’s unhoused population, and raised her attention to the prevalent issue of homelessness. Since engaging in the Bioethics project, Louisa has gained more empathy for vulnerable populations, and this has encouraged her to want to help unhoused people in the community.

Class of 2025

Olivia Hand

Olivia is currently a junior at Kent Place and has attended the school for six years. She was inspired to join Bioethics due to her keen interest in the medical industrial complex and the various fascinating topics intertwined in medicine. This year, Olivia focused her Bioethics Project on the pharmaceutical industry and drug pricing. She specifically analyzes the ethicality of the United States' high drug prices and the impacts patent protection, PBMs, and a capitalistic society have on the industry. Her research grapples with utilitarianism, consequentialism, and deontology as she uses the values of dignity, equality, responsibility, and individualism to analyze her ethical dilemma. Olivia is very grateful for this opportunity to participate in the Bioethics Project and cherishes the skills and knowledge she acquired as she continues to pursue medicine in her

future.

Class of 2026

Maya Hardy

Maya is a current sophomore at Kent Place School and has been a student there since kindergarten. She became interested in Bioethics after watching a symposium presentation in eighth grade that ignited her curiosity about the intersection of ethics and medicine. This year’s theme, “Re-Imagining the Industrial Complex,” sparked interest in Maya as she is passionate about innovative ways to rethink or examine approaches to justice and equity in the healthcare system. Throughout her project, Maya explored the historical practices within the United States and their ethical implications on Black individuals today, with a focus on Black pregnant women. This exploration allowed her to examine the long-lasting impact of these practices on current healthcare disparities. Maya found this course to be more than just an academic course, but rather an opportunity to immerse herself in new perspectives and understand concepts that are prevalent in today’s world. She is grateful for the opportunity to participate in the Bioethics Project at Kent Place School and will continue to utilize the skills she has learned in future academic endeavors.

Class of 2025

Piper Mayes

Piper is a current Junior at Kent Place School and she has attended there since Kindergarten. She joined the 2023-2024 Bioethics Project because of her sparked interest after watching her peers present during the symposiums in her freshman and sophomore year. She researched medical error, focusing on the Medical Industrial Complex’s role in errors and the ethical permissibility of holding the physician accountable. She analyzed what constitutes a medical error, common forms of error, the evolution of the patient-physician relationship, and The Medical Industrial Complex to come to a conclusion. Piper enjoyed the various class discussions and the plethora of information that she learned about each topic throughout the year. Piper is very appreciative of the opportunity to have participated in an environment of so much knowledge and hopes to continue exploring bioethics in the future!

Class of 2025

Miranda Kristina Santiago

Miranda is currently a junior at Kent Place. She joined her cohort to explore the topic “Beyond the Medical-Industrial Complex: Reimagining Healthcare,” as she has always had a general interest in public health and medicine. The topic of her individual project explores the ethicality behind the use of artificial intelligence in mental health care with an overarching question to assess its capacity in this context, questioning deontology, justice, and empathy in this ethical dilemma. Her project was instrumental in streamlining her interest in psychiatry, and she is immensely grateful for all the wonderful experiences and knowledge she gained from participating in this course. She hopes to continue developing her research abilities and presentation skills, building off of this invaluable academic opportunity, as she continues her studies and eventually goes to university to pursue pre-medicine.

Class of 2025

Bridget Smallman

Bridget Smallman is a current junior at Kent Place School and has attended the school since the ninth grade. Her interest in ethics sparked during her freshman year “Intro to Ethics” class, where she was able to learn about important ethical frameworks and the ethical decision-making process. Throughout this past year, Bridget has been fascinated by the theme of “Reimagining and the Medical Industrial Complex'' and has enjoyed learning about various aspects of the American healthcare system. For her project, Bridget chose to research the opioid epidemic and drug decriminalization. Specifically, she analyzed Measure 110, a former Oregon law that decriminalized typically illicit drugs. Bridget's research has illuminated the need to assist vulnerable populations and the impacts of governmental interference in healthcare. Bridget is extremely grateful for her time in The Bioethics Project and all that she has learned from her teachers, Georgetown mentor, and peers.

Class of 2025

Isha Talpalde

Isha Talpade is a junior at Kent Place and has been attending since 8th grade. Her interest in Bioethics and the 2023-24 theme came from noticing her own encounters with issues in healthcare as an EMT and her love for science. Guided by this year's theme, Isha dedicated her project to the various perspectives of Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD). Through her research, she found how complex Medical Aid in Dying is around the world. She found the process of writing her paper extremely valuable, and she knows the skills she gained through the symposium and daily classes will serve her well through her final year at KPS and beyond. Isha is beyond grateful for having the opportunity to be in the Bioethics Project and plans to carry all her learnings into real-life settings.

Class of 2024

Miranda Wang

Miranda Wang is a senior at Kent Place School and has been a part of the community for thirteen years. She was inspired to join the Bioethics Project after attending the Bioethics Symposium, as well as her longtime interest in the intersection between science and ethics. She chose to focus her research project on the impact of intellectual property protection in the pharmaceutical industry on both decreasing drug accessibility and enabling innovation. She explored this issue with a focus on the principle of justice and the value of innovation in society, as well as the responsibilities of different stakeholders involved. She hopes that her research will increase awareness and understanding of the complex relationship between policy and bioethics. She is deeply grateful for the opportunity to participate in the Bioethics Project and for the invaluable resources and knowledge this course has provided.

Class of 2026

Olivia Zhang

Olivia Zhang is a current sophomore at Kent Place School and has been part of the community since ninth grade. Her passion for biology and her introduction to ethics through the school's course offerings sparked her interest in bioethics. This academic year, the theme “Beyond the Medical-Industrial Complex: Reimagining Healthcare” particularly spiked her interest because of its wide range of fascinating topics and its connection to her own experiences with the medical industry. For her project, Olivia chose to explore the field of xenotransplantation, which involves transplanting animal organs into human recipients. Despite its nascent stage, marked by ongoing trials and tests, emerging cases suggest that this innovative solution to the organ donor shortage may become a reality sooner than anticipated. Her research examined the ethical value of fairness and the principle of nonmaleficence through a utilitarian lens. She is incredibly grateful for the knowledge that she has learned in this course and the growth of her ability to recognize the nuanced gray areas that lie between what initially appears to be clear-cut black and white distinctions.