Center for Ethics

Michael D. Bolon established MD&B Enterprises in 2013 after serving in leadership positions in Fortune 500 companies for more than 40 years. Michael’s professional experience includes engineering management for Chrysler Corporation and General Dynamics Land Systems. Mr. Bolon joined Chrysler Corporation in 1968 as a power train engineer. Within five years he advanced to a management position where he led the design and development of the propulsion system for the M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank which included the integration of a turbine engine. After General Dynamics acquired Chrysler Defense in 1982, Mr. Bolon was named Deputy Program Manager for Tank Programs, with progression in 1986 to General Manager of Armored Vehicle Technologies Associated, a joint venture between GD and FMC Corporation. In 1992, he was appointed Director of Advanced Programs for General Dynamics, and was named Vice President for Amphibious Systems in 1996. Just three years later, Mr. Bolon became the Vice President of Production and Delivery, responsible for all manufacturing. In 2000, Mr. Bolon was appointed Senior Vice President of Engineering Design and Development, leading General Dynamics Land Systems’ team for technology, product design and development, logistics engineering and technical support. His leadership role continued to evolve after being named Senior Vice President of Enterprise Strategy and Chief Technical Officer. In that role, Mr. Bolon had enterprise-wide responsibility for Advanced Programs, Business Development, Business Planning and Alliances, Planning Control and Analysis, and Innovation and Technology Planning. Mr. Bolon’s most recent role was the Senior Vice President and Business Sector Executive for United States Marine Corps and United States Navy programs. Mr. Bolon’s professional experience includes responsibility as Chairman of the General Dynamics Corporate Engineering and Technology Council from 2005 to 2013. He also serves on Oakland University’s School of Engineering and Computer Science (SECS) Advisory Board, the Engineering Society of Detroit Board of Directors and the National Advanced Mobility Consortium Board of Directors.  Mr. Bolan is also recognized in Wayne State University's Hall of Fame , where you can learn more.

Dr. Amy DeBaets is Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine. She teaches the Medical Humanities and Clinical Bioethics courses for the medical students. Her research interests include spirituality in medicine, research ethics, and emerging technology ethics. Dr. DeBaets earned a Ph.D. at Emory University in religion with a focus on ethics and society, as well as a graduate certificate in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. She also holds M.Div. and Th.M. degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary, an M.A. in Bioethics from Trinity International University, and B.A. and B.S. degrees from Truman State University. She is a member of the advisory board of the Conference on Medicine and Religion. Dr. DeBaets is a member of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities where she co-leads the Religion, Spirituality, and Bioethics Group. She is also a member of the American Academy of Religion, where she serves on the steering committee of the Transhumanism and Religion Group, and Societas Ethica: The European Society for Research in Ethics.

Dr. Ami Harbin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Women and Gender Studies and Assistant Director of Women and Gender Studies at Oakland University. Her research focuses on topics in feminist philosophy, ethics, moral psychology, and bioethics. Her book, Disorientation and Moral Life, was published in 2016, and she has published articles in the areas of moral motivation, philosophy of emotions, philosophy of policing and prisons, restorative justice, philosophy of psychiatry, LGBTQ health, and race and bioethics. She regularly teaches courses in Bioethics, Feminist Theory, Ethics, and Philosophy of Policing and Punishment. Learn more about Dr. Ami Harbin's published philosophy work.

Kevin Hickey teaches in the Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies Program as well as in the Religious Studies Program at Oakland University and is a regular special guest lecturer for the Oakland University William Beaumont Medical School.  He is a Zen Buddhist priest and President and Co-Founder of The Institute for Contemporary Buddhist Ministry. Kevin holds a graduate degree in Linguistics and undergraduate degrees in Political Science/East Asian Studies and Buddhist Studies. Kevin is the staff Palliative Care Chaplain for Beaumont Health (Royal Oak), where he leads several meditation programs and is a Clinical Instructor for the M1 Spirituality Rounds and is also on the teaching faculty for Nursing Orientation. Kevin also serves on the clinical Ethics Consultation Service for Beaumont Royal Oak. Kevin is currently pursuing a Masters of Science in Hospice & Palliative Care (MSHP) at Madonna University. Learn more about him through Buddhist Ministry.

Dr. Elysa Koppelman-White is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Oakland University. Her research focuses on Ethics, Research Ethics, Bioethics, and Professional Ethics (e.g., Engineering Ethics), and she has published on a number of topics in ethics including research misconduct, public discourse in bioethics, and end of life. She regularly teaches courses in bioethics, engineering ethics, ethics, and logic. The Center for Ethics supported Prof. Elysa White’s efforts to assemble and coach a philosophically-informed debate team from Berkley High School. The team, calling itself the "Philosoraptors", participated in the Michigan High School Ethics Bowl competition, which took place at the University of Michigan Palmer Commons Conference Center, in Ann Arbor, Sunday, February 7, 2016. The CFE also supported Oakland students, Jonathan Abdal, and RJ Mey, in serving as judges for the competition.

Ron A. May has recently retired as executive vice president of Major Enterprise Projects for DTE Energy, a Detroit, Michigan‐based energy company involved in the development and management of energy‐related businesses and services nationwide.  With over 3 million customers in 450 Michigan communities, DTE Energy is one of Michigan’s leading corporate citizens. In May’s executive roles at DTE he has worked in almost every organization and on most large and strategic initiatives during his impactful career.  Most noteworthy recently, he created an organization to perform project management on over $1.5 billion dollars of capital improvements yearly.  The organization was recognized as a world-wide finalist of Project Management Organization of the year in 2014.  This organization led the planning and project management for the now completed re-lighting of the City of Detroit. May serves as the chairman of the Oakland University School of Engineering and Computer Science Advisory Board.  He has also served on numerous boards including Construction Industry Institute, University of Michigan Engineering Advisory Council, Michigan Roundtable of Diversity and Inclusion, Detroit Police Athletic League, and United Way 211. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, The American Nuclear Society, Engineering Society of Detroit, and the American Association of Cost Engineers.  He also was Vice President for Project Management Associates, an Ann Arbor based project management consulting firm. Ron May is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from Itron, the Diversity Champion awards from the DTE Energy African American Action Association, Birmingham‐Bloomfield Diversity Task Force and the Detroit Chapter of the Association of Asian Pacific Americans, the Distinguished Leader Award from Leadership Oakland, the Honorary Alumni Award from Oakland University and more.  He is a distinguished volunteer for the Association of Fundraising Professionals Greater Detroit Chapter. In December 2016, he received the Distinguished Leader Award from the University of Michigan – Dearborn. May received his bachelors of science in civil engineering from the University of Michigan in 1973 and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University in 2003. He performed graduate work at Eastern Michigan University, Youngstown State University and Pennsylvania State University. He also attended the Center for Creative Leadership.  May is also a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Project Management Professional, and holds a Michigan real estate license. He has served on the OU SECS Advisory Board for over 17 years. In December 2016, May was the recipient of an honorary doctorate of science in engineering from Oakland University. As an Oakland University School of Engineering and Computer Science Advisory Board member, May created, has helped coordinate and sponsor the Sharf Memorial Golf Outing. This prestigious annual event is held at the impressive R&S Sharf Golf Course on the campus of Oakland University. The outing raises funds for student scholarships, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) initiatives for under-represented students. 

Dr. Fritz McDonald is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Oakland University. His research focuses on metaethics and the philosophy of language. Metaethics is the study of the nature of ethics--including the metaphysics of ethical reality, the semantics of moral language, and issues such as knowledge and truth in ethics. Dr. McDonald's work in metaethics focuses on moral truth and agency. Regarding truth, Dr. McDonald has drawn on deflationary accounts of truth to make a case for objective moral truth. He has developed accounts of the metaphysics of morality that make sense of distinctions between metaethical realists and antirealists. In his work on agency, Dr. McDonald has made a case for a compatibilist account of moral agency, holding that causal determinism and freedom of the will, in the most important senses, are compatible. He is currently working on a project relating the notion of a person to practical and moral responsibility. Dr. McDonald's work has been published in venues including Acta Analytica, AI and Ethics, American Philosophy: An Encyclopedia, The American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers, Analysis, The Croatian Journal of Philosophy, Existenz, The Journal of Value Inquiry, Neuroethics, The Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Psychology, and Philosophy in Review. He has presented his work throughout the United States and in Canada, Croatia, Finland, India, Mexico, and Poland.

Dr. Kathleen Moore is Professor Emerita in the Department of Chemistry at Oakland University.  Her major biochemistry research was in the formation and degradation of the acyl-CoA moieties which are critical to lipid metabolism.  Other research focused on the synthesis of novel thioester compounds, the development of capillary electrophoretic enzyme assays, and the isolation, purification, and characterization of gangliosides from various dairy products.  She was trained on teaching ethics to early career scientists at an NIH-supported workshop in 2004.  Subsequently, she developed and taught the first offering of SCI 511 (The Ethics and Practice of Science) to diverse STEM graduate students.  Most recently, she was the Principal Investigator on the NSF ADVANCEPartnership for Adaptation, Implementation, and Dissemination (PAID) Grant: Women in Science and Engineering at Oakland University (WISE@OU, 2011-2016).  Professor Moore also served as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and has played a central role in the development of faculty mentoring and support across the university.

Dr. Mark Navin is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Oakland University.  His research focuses on topics in social and political philosophy, ethics, and bioethics, including ethical questions surrounding vaccination and vaccine refusal, and ethical and political questions about food, gender, and international ethics.  His book, Values and Vaccine Refusal: Hard Questions in Epistemology, Ethics and Health Care, was published in 2016.  He regularly teaches courses in philosophy of law, global justice, ethics, and health care. Learn more about him through Academia and Dr. Mark Navin's published work.

Dr. Valerie Palmer-Mehta is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at Oakland University. Her intellectual interests sit at the intersection of Rhetorical Studies and Gender/Sexuality Studies. Her current research investigates the discursive strategies women employ to influence and transform public culture, intellectual traditions, and everyday practices. She also analyzes the rhetorical construction of women's ways of knowing and being, as well as their methods of resistance, in the media. Her overarching goal is to identify and assess the creative methods by which women question entrenched orthodoxies and establish new paradigms and values--and the level of resistance they receive when doing so. She teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses including Introduction to Communication Studies; Rhetorical Theory; Persuasion; Rhetorical Criticism; Women, Power & Persuasion; Multicultural Communication; Field Experience in Communication, and Feminist Rhetorical Theory. She is the recipient of the OU Honors College Inspiration Award, the Elizabeth Youngjohn Teaching Award, and the Phyllis Law Googasian Award. She currently serves as the Communication Program Director, as a member of the Academic Conduct Committee, and the Women's Leadership Institute Advisory Board. She also sits on the editorial boards of Southern Communication Journal and Women's Studies in Communication. Learn more about her through Dr. Valerie Palmer-Mehta's Academia.

Dr. Michele Parkhill Purdie is Associate Professor of Psychology at Oakland University. Her primary research interests concern the predictors and consequences of sexual assault perpetration and victimization, with a particular emphasis on childhood trauma, substance use, and emotion regulation. She has established a strong program of research that utilizes on both survey and experimental methodologies in examining predictors of past sexual aggression and the likelihood of engaging in sexual assault perpetration in the future. She regularly teaches courses in social psychology, research methods, health psychology, and behavioral health. She is also the co-founder of the Violence and Abuse Resource Consortium at OU, which serves as a clearinghouse for university, local, state, and national anti-violence information. The VARC is a dynamic, collaborative resource connecting students, faculty, practitioners, and community members conducting anti-violence work. Thus, the VARC positions Oakland University as the heart of an important scholarly and community endeavor for compiling and sharing anti-violence information.

Dr. Osamah A. Rawashdeh, Ph.D., P.E. is an Associate Professor and the Academic Curriculum Coordinator in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Oakland University, Michigan. He received his BS with honors, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Kentucky in 2000, 2003, 2005 respectively. Before Joining Oakland in 2007, he served as a lecturer at Kentucky. He absolved training at Daimler Benz AG and at SIEMENS AG and is a member of ACM, AIAA, AUVSI, ARRL, and a senior member of IEEE. His research interests include unmanned systems, embedded systems design, fault-tolerance, and reconfigurable computing. His work is actively funded by the NSF, Chrysler, Ford, GM, and others, and is published in form of 65+ Journal and conference papers as well as 5 issued patents. Dr. Rawashdeh is a licensed Professional Engineer (PE) in the State of Michigan. Learn more about him through Oakland University's embedded systems research laboratory.

Dr. Paul Reitemeier is Corporate Director of Clinical Ethics at Beaumont Health and Faculty Member in Clinical Ethics at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine. His expertise is in the areas of clinical, organizational, and research ethics, having extensive experience working as a clinical ethicist, leading IRBs, and teaching in medical school contexts. Dr. Reitemeier is widely published and nationally recognized in clinical, research, and organizational ethics and health care ethics education. His leadership skills and program development experience include enhancing humanistic qualities in health professionals through focused curriculum structures, using systems management to foster compassionate patient care at the end of life, and enhancing professional and organizational integrity through integrated ethics programs. He has extensive teaching experience in undergraduate and graduate education for health professional students, bioethicists, health care administrators, and liberal arts students. His main research interests are related to the ethical components of professionalism, the compassionate care of the dying, and issues of justice in health care organization, financing and delivery, especially organizational ethics. Learn more at Dr. Paul Reitemeier's Research Gate and Paul J . Reitemeier's Academia page.

Dr. Mark Rigstad is Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Oakland University. His research focuses on political philosophy, philosophy of international relations, philosophy of law, and the history of ethical and political thought. He has published numerous articles on topics related to just war theory, terrorism, republicanism, pragmatism, and early modern political thought. He regularly teaches courses in Philosophy of International Relations: Law, War, and Peace; Political Philosophy; and Ethics; and for the last several years has led Oakland University’s Ethics Bowl team to successful regional and national competitions. Learn more at Just War Theory.

Dr. Bradley J. Roth is Professor of Physics at Oakland University. His research focuses on bioelectric phenomena, such as the electrical activity of nerves and muscle. His particular interests are electrical stimulation of the heart, pacemakers and defibrillation, magnetic stimulation of nerves, biomagnetism, and using the Lorentz force for imaging current or electrical conductivity. He is the Director of the Center for Biomedical Research at OU, and has served on the Women in Science and Engineering at OU Leadership Team, and as the Interim Vice Provost for Research at Oakland, as well as in many other capacities. 

Dr. Michael Sevilla is Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Oakland University. His research focuses on the chemistry of free radical species produced by the high energy irradiation of DNA by gamma irradiation and ion beams. An internationally known radiation chemist, Sevilla has received more than $4 million in research grants since his arrival at OU. With a lab devoted to looking at fundamental properties of DNA and the processes involved in radiation damage to DNA from the molecular standpoint, Sevilla and the students who work in his lab apply physical chemistry techniques to look at biologically important systems. He has served as the chair of the Department of Chemistry and as an acting associate dean for the College of Arts and Sciences; he has also served as president of the Radiation Research Society. In addition to his research, Sevilla continues to teach courses in chemistry at the graduate and undergraduate levels, including a course on the Ethics and Practice of Science (SCI 511), which explores ethical issues related to scientific integrity and the consequences of scientific misconduct. 

Dr. David Stone is Chief Research Officer, Professor of Philosophy, and  Professor of Health Science at Oakland University. His areas of research  include philosophy of natural and social science, technology and medicine;  ethics; forensic psychiatry; substantivist economics; organizational  change; public health; qualitative research methods; risk behavior; youth  violence; placebo studies; research development; inter and  transdisciplinarity; and research development. He has directed programs  and centers at the Fenway Health Center, the Harvard School of Public  Health, Tufts School of Medicine, and for Sheffield University (UK). Dr.  Stone has conducted research with more than $40 million in grant support  from national, international, and foundation sources, provided research  consulting services to several major U.S. universities, organized eight  international conferences, and authored more than 100 publications,  conference papers, lectures and abstracts. As Chief Research Officer, Dr.  Stone is responsible for coordinating all research-related operations,  including both sponsored and internally-funded programs, technology  transfer, commercialization of intellectual property, and oversight of  compliance activities. Learn more through Dr. Stone's Academia or OU's Research Office Contact.

Dr. Jason Wasserman is Associate Professor of Biomedical Sciences at the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine. His scholarly work focuses on the social psychology of ethical decision-making, medicalization of homelessness, and the sociological impacts of the epidemiological transition on medicine.  He directs the Medical Humanities and Clinical Bioethics courses for M1 students, as well as chairing the Admissions Committee and serving as faculty advisor on professionalism. He also serves on the ethics consultation service for Beaumont Health, sits on the Michigan State Medical Society Committee on Bioethics, and works closely with the Oakland County Homeless Healthcare Collaboration. Learn more on Dr. Wasserman's Research Gate.

Dr. Patricia Wren is Professor and Program Director of the Master of Public Health (MPH) Program as well as the Health Sciences and Applied Health Sciences Programs at Oakland University.  Dr. Wren’s research centers on improving health outcomes across a range of physical and mental health conditions. She started her career in public health working to evaluate HIV/AIDS prevention and service programs.  Since then, she has participated in research studies related to stroke, glaucoma, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, and pelvic floor disorders in women.  Currently Dr. Wren is one of four co-investigators on GRASP, a campus-wide initiative to prevent suicide and improve mental health in students, faculty, and staff.  She continues to provide expertise in the design of public health interventions and the measurement of important outcomes including satisfaction and optimism, health decision-making, functional status, and quality of life.