About me.

Vasiliki Nataly Rahimzadeh, PhD

I am an Assistant Professor with the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. My research explores ethical and regulatory issues associated with sharing genomic data more widely, efficiently and securely across computing systems. I am interested in how the scientific community can harness the power of big data to advance medicine in ways that respect the privacy interests of individuals and their communities about whom this data relates.

After earning my Bachelor of Science in Microbial Biology from the University in California Berkeley in 2012, I pursued graduate studies at McGill University where I completed an MSc (2014), followed by a PhD (2019) in biomedical ethics. My dissertation first developed, then validated an ethical-legal framework to support responsible sharing of genomic data involving children. My work was supported by a prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (2016-2019) and earned me both a Governor General’s Gold Medal and Gordon A. MacLachlan Prizes for top dissertation in the biological and health sciences in Canada. I joined the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics as a Postdoctoral Fellow (2019-2022) with support from a National Human Genome Research Institute’s Ethical Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) Program training grant. In addition to my published research contributions in journals such as JAMA Pediatrics, American Journal of Bioethics and European Journal of Human Genetics, I am an active member of the Regulatory and Ethics Work Stream of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health where I contribute empirical policy research on harmonization and standards-development for health data sharing.

I invite you to engage with my publications and learn more about my ongoing projects.