In honor of Black History Month, Harvard Medical School and Tuskegee University have partnered on a series of events examining the history of racism in health care, its impact on Black individuals and the Black community, and gathering solutions for a healthier future from experts and thought leaders in history, health policy and law, social justice, and public health and medicine. The events are held in February and the recordings are uploaded to the Center's YouTube channel. This series is co-sponsored by the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics and the National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care at Tuskegee University.
"Bioethics and Black History: The Legacy of the Tuskegee Report"
Thursday, February 12, 2026 at 5-6pm ET on Zoom
The Tuskegee Report—developed by Tuskegee University’s National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care in collaboration with Vanderbilt University—seeks to redefine bioethics at the intersection of research with human subjects, clinical trials, medicine, and public health by centering the voices, experiences, histories and cultural identities of populations disproportionately impacted by unethical research practices and unequal care. This Black History Month conversation, hosted by Harvard Medical School’s Center for Bioethics, will feature Dr. David Augustin Hodge, Sr. and Dr. T.S. Harvey, facilitated by Dr. Rebecca Brendel. Together, they will explore how the perspectives of BIPOC populations—rooted in resilience, memory, and lived experience—must be foundational in shaping the next generation of ethical frameworks for research, medicine, and public health.
About the Speakers
T. S. Harvey, PhD is an Associate Professor of Medical and Linguistic Anthropology and Global Health at Vanderbilt University. His research and interests focus expanding scientific partnerships, developing innovative technologies, and building local capacities to collaboratively tackle large scale global public health and environmental challenges that emerge at the critical intersection of vulnerable populations, health disparities, disease, risk, environmental degradation, water, sanitation, and infrastructure. The evolution of this trans-disciplinary approach is the product of over a decade of funded collaborative research, capacity-building work, and global engagement with institutions and organization (e.g., EPA, WHO, Ford Foundation, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) on a wide range of topics that include but are not limited to: cross-cultural doctor-patient communication, language and culture in global public health, waterborne diseases, enteric illnesses, disaster prevention and relief, neighborhood approaches to risk reduction, crisis management, sustainability, resilience, and environmental protection. On the technological side, Dr. Harvey lead the team that created one of the nation's first virtual self-screening tool that helped individuals assess their risk of being infected with COVID-19 and facilitated access health care by pointing users (in real time) to resources available in their area. Most recently, in his role at the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health, Dr. Harvey developed and designed a low cost wearable medical device to increase prescription drug adherence globally.
David Augustin Hodge, Sr., PhD, DMin, MEd, MTS currently serves as Director (Interim), Lead Ethicist, and Research Professor at the National Center for Bioethics in Research and Healthcare at Tuskegee University. He most recently served as the Associate Director of Education at the National Center. In this role, which he began in October 2017, he served as the Director of the Center’s Bioethics Honors program and bioethics minor, its annual Public Health Ethics Intensive Course, and various outreach programs designed to engage the Center’s target audiences, as well as teaches bioethics and public health ethics courses. In addition to his academic and administrative duties, Dr. Hodge is a researcher, author and editor. He previously served as senior associate editor for the Center’s Journal of Healthcare, Sciences, and Humanities. He now serves as the Editor of the journal. This double-blind, peer-reviewed journal — a partnership with the Smithsonian Institution’s Office of Sponsored Programs — was first published in 2009 by the former Navy Medical Institute for the Healthcare Humanities and Research Leadership, and then transferred to the center in 2012 for continued publication.
Before his current appointment at Tuskegee University, Dr. Hodge served as an adjunct/assistant professor of philosophy at Georgia State University and as a guest lecturer in philosophy, theology and ethics at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia. For nearly two decades prior, he provided leadership to the Religion and Philosophy Department at Florida Memorial University in Miami. During a portion of that time, he also taught moral theory and bioethics courses at Nova Southeastern University. He also served as adjunct professor of philosophy, ethics, religion and logic at Broward College, Miami Dade College, St. Thomas University and Barry University, all in South Florida.
Dr. Hodge is the eleventh of twelve children born to Alice and Alvin Hodge. While pursuing a PhD in philosophy at the University of Miami, he completed his dissertation entitled Jesus the Virtue Ethicist: A Meta-ethical Anticipation of Moral Sentimentalism, Empathy and Care, which draws from the continued intersection his life has had with these virtues. The themes of physical, emotional and spiritual healing continued to prevail in the books he later authored: In the Midst of My Tears: The Bible Speaks to Abandonment, Betrayal, Rejection, and Loss (2003), God of Our Silent Tears: Women of the Bible Healing Women of Today (2001), and God of Our Silent Tears: A Five Week Journey (2003). Dr. Hodge is presently completing two book manuscripts: Black Bioethics and Intersectionality: New Horizons in the Ethics of Empathy and Care examines the critical intersections of Black bioethics, intersectionality, and the ethics of empathy and care within healthcare. This book challenges traditional bioethical frameworks by emphasizing relational ethics, cultural competence, and the lived experiences of Black communities, Springer’s Press. Black Bioethics and Intersectionality is a textbook for Congella Press.
A native of St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, Dr. Hodge’s academic background includes a Bachelor of arts degree in Bible, Theology and English from American Baptist College in Nashville, Tennessee; a Master of Arts degree in Education from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma; a Master of Theological Studies degree from Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia; a Doctor of Ministry degree from Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia; and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Miami in Miami, Florida. He is married to Theresa Paula Hodge, an excited and passionate elementary school educator who teaches in Gwinnett County, Georgia. They have three children: David II, Avia, and Jonathan.