Elizabeth Heitman, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Psychiatry’s Division of Ethics and the Program in Ethics in Science and Medicine.  Her work focuses on cultural aspects of ethics in clinical medicine, biomedical science, and public health, particularly international standards of research ethics and education in the responsible conduct of research (RCR).  She teaches research ethics and responsible conduct of research in the Master of Science in Clinical Investigation program, Department of Applied Clinical Research, and O'Donnell School of Public Health, and is an ethics facilitator for medical students.  She is Co-chair of the Clements University Hospital Ethics Committee and a member of the Parkland Institutional Ethics Committee.

Dr. Heitman is Co-Principal Investigator of the NIH Fogarty International Center-sponsored Collaborative Research Ethics Education Program between Mozambique’s Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and UT Southwestern, and Co-PI of a similar NIH-funded international research ethics education program at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru.  She is also a Co-Investigator and Mentor on the NHLBI-sponsored research training grants Obesity Health Disparities PRIDE at the University of Houston and Jackson Heart Study Graduate Training and Education Center with the University of Mississippi Medical Center.  

Dr. Heitman is a National Associate of the National Research Council and former member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Life Sciences (BLS), and served on NASEM's Standing Committee on Educational Institutes for Teaching Responsible Science.  With the National Academies, she has promoted the international teaching of responsible science through faculty development projects in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Dr. Heitman came to UT Southwestern in late 2016 from Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society, where she was a member of the Academy for Excellence in Teaching and served as a clinical ethics consultant and chair of the Ethics Committee.  She was previously on the faculty the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, Texas and was clinical ethicist at Hermann Hospital and Lyndon Baines Johnson General Hospital.

Dr. Heitman received her Ph.D. in Religious Studies in 1988 from Rice University’s joint program in biomedical ethics with the University of Texas – Houston Health Science Center.