Rebecca Brendel
Rebecca Weintraub Brendel is Director of the Center for Bioethics, Founding Director of the Master of Science in Bioethics (MBE) Program, Frances Glessner Lee Associate Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine in the Field of Legal Medicine, and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Brendel practices clinical and forensic psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she is Director of Ethics for the Chester Pierce Division of Global Psychiatry and Director of Law and Ethics at the Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior. She previously served as Medical Director of the One Fund Center for Boston Marathon bombing survivors at MGH, and Clinical Director of the Red Sox Foundation and MGH Home Base Program for returning veterans and their families. Dr. Brendel is admitted to the Massachusetts Bar. She is President-Elect of the Massachusetts Medical Society.
Dr. Brendel received her BA in philosophy with distinction from Yale and medical and law degrees with honors from the University of Chicago. She completed psychiatry and forensic psychiatry training at MGH-McLean and an Ethics Fellowship at Harvard University as an Edmond and Lily Safra fellow.
Dr. Brendel works at the intersection of psychiatry, medicine, law, and ethics and is a past president of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (2018-2019) and the American Psychiatric Association (2022-2023). She is currently President-Elect of the Massachusetts Medical Society (2025-2026). She has served on ethics committees of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, and the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (ACLP), and chaired the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Ethics Committee and Massachusetts Medical Society Committee on Ethics, Grievances, and Professional Standards. She is currently Vice-Chair of the American College of Psychiatrists Ethics Committee, co-opted consultant to the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) Ethics Committee, and in her final year of a seven-year appointment to the American Medical Association Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA), of which she serves as Chair.
