TAKUNDA A. MATOSE
Tmatose@luc.edu
Department of Philosophy| Loyola University Chicago| Crown Center, 344 | Chicago, IL 60660
EDUCATION
Ph.D. in Philosophy, Vanderbilt University, 2021
Dissertation: “What is the point of healthcare? A defense of relational approaches to justice in healthcare”
Committee: Robert B. Talisse (chair), Arthur Caplan, Diana B. Heney, Lucius T. Outlaw, Paul C. Taylor
Areas of Specialization: Bioethics, Social and Political Philosophy
Areas of Competence: Philosophy of Race, Philosophy of Medicine
Master of Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania, 2009
Thesis: “Genetic Technologies and the Question of Moral Responsibility”
Director: Autumn Fiester
B.A. in Philosophy, University of Cincinnati, 2007
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
Assistant Professor of Philosophy Loyola University Chicago 2022 - Present
Edmond J. Safra/Center for Bioethics Joint-Fellow-in-Residence Harvard University 2021 - 2022
PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS
Matose, Takunda. Under Review. “Justice Beyond Distributions: Maternal Health Disparity and the Serena Paradox.”
Matose, Takunda. Under Review. “Reconsidering Fairness in the Allocation of Scarce Health Care Resources.”
Matose, Takunda. 2023. “The Anti-Vaxxer as a Moral Equal: Democracy, Legitimization, and the Violence of Individual Freedom.” Philosophy Today – Violent Democracies.
Lanphier, Elizabeth, and Takunda Matose. 2020. "(Re)Imagining (Re)Habilitation: An Argument from Death Row." Public Philosophy Journal.
Matose, Takunda, and Elizabeth Lanphier. 2020. “Rights Don’t Stand Alone: Responsibility for Rights in a Pandemic.” American Journal of Bioethics.
Aguet, François et al. 2017. "Genetic Effects on Gene Expression Across Human Tissues." Nature 204-213.
Li, Xin et al. 2017. "The Impact of Rare Variation on Gene Expression Across Tissues." Nature 239-243.
Tan, How et al. 2017. "Dynamic Landscape of Regulation of RNA Editing in Mammals." Nature 249-254.
Tukiainen, Taru et al. 2017. "Landscape of X Chromosome Inactivation Across Human Tissues." Nature 244-248.
BIOETHICS EXPERIENCE
2014 – 2016 Leidos Biomedical Research, Bethesda, MD
ELSI Project Manager/ NIH – (BBRB) Ethical, Legal, and Regulatory Group
2013 – 2014 Kelly Government Solutions (NIH/OD/OHSRP), Bethesda, MD
Human Subjects Protection Policy Analyst
2011 – 2013 Technical Resources International, Inc., Rockville, MD
Task Manager – Human Subjects Protection (HSP)
2008 – 2011 Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
Member: Institutional Review Board
2009 – 2010 Henry M. Jackson Foundation, Rockville, MD
Associate Bioethicist– Office for Policy in Clinical Research Operations
REFEREED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
2022 Matose, Takunda. “Antivaxxers as Moral Equals,” World Congress of Bioethics, Basel, CH.
2022 Matose, Takunda. “Towards a Relational Paradigm for Justice in Health Care,” Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, Basel, CH.
2022 Matose, Takunda. “Meeting Health Needs: A proposal for a sound normative basis for the global allocation of health resources,” Oxford Global Health and Bioethics International Conference, Oxford, UK.
2020 Matose, Takunda. “Why Justice in Healthcare Relies on a Social Conception of Health,” World Congress of Bioethics, Philadelphia, PA (Virtual Conference)
2020 Matose, Takunda. “Justice and the Collective Conception of Health,” International Health Humanities Consortium Conference, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
2019 Matose, Takunda. “Beyond Equity of Access: Justice, Moral Philosophy, and Racial Health Disparities,” Oxford Global Health and Bioethics International Conference, Oxford, UK.
2019 Matose, Takunda. “Embedded Normativity: Animism and Mysticism of Black Aesthetic Objects,” (Re)membering Africa: Women’s Narratives on the Continent and Beyond Workshop, Houston, TX.
2012 Matose, Takunda. “‘Treating as though’: an account of the moral status of children and the cognitively impaired,” Brain Matters conference, Cleveland Clinic.
2011 Matose, Takunda. “On the Conceptual Limitations of Freedom and Democracy,” Freedom, Action, Politics conference, Loyola University of Chicago.
BOOK CHAPTERS
Taylor, Paul C., Eric MacPhail, Lisa Madura, and Takunda Matose. Forthcoming. “Analytic Philosophy of Race.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Analytic Philosophy, by Marcus Rossberg. Cambridge University Press.
Matose, Takunda. 2023. “Contemporary Public Health Challenges in Africa.” In International Public Health Policy and Ethics, by Michael Boylan. Springer Publishers.
Matose, Takunda and Paul C. Taylor. 2022. “Pandemics and Race.” In Ethical Health Policy within Disease Pandemics, by Michael Boylan. Springer Publishers.
Taylor, Paul C., Sarah Dimaggio, Holly Longair, and Takunda Matose. 2020. “Black Bodies, "Black Panther".” In African Somaesthetics: Cultures, Feminisms, Politics, by Catherine Botha. The Hague: Brill | Nijhoff.
AWARDS
2023 Loyola University Chicago Rule of Law Institute Research Fellow Award
2022 Donchin & Holmes Emerging Scholar Prize (International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics)
2016-2021 Vanderbilt Provost’s Graduate Fellowship
2019-2020 Vanderbilt Robert Penn Warren Seminar Program
2020 University of Edinburgh, Mason Institute for Medicine, Life Science and the Law Visiting Fellow (Deferred to Summer 2021)
2017 Vanderbilt Summer Language Training Grant
2014 NIH Director’s Award
TEACHING
Instructor of Record, Department of Philosophy, Loyola University Chicago
2023 F: Phil 417 – Social Health Care Ethics: Race in Science and Medicine [G][1]
Phil 284 – Health Care Ethics
S: Phil 284 – Health Care Ethics
Phil 284 – Health Care Ethics
2022 F: Phil 284 – Health Care Ethics
Phil 324 – Bioethics Minor Capstone: Health disparities
Instructor of Record, Department of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University
2021 F: Phil 1002W – Introduction to Philosophy
S: Phil 1008W – Introduction to Philosophy of Medicine
2020 F: Phil 1002W – Introduction to Philosophy
S: Phil 1003 – General Logic
2019 S: Phil 1002W – Introduction to Philosophy
2018 F: Phil 1002W – Introduction to Philosophy
S: Phil 1003 – General Logic
Teaching Assistant, Department of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University
2017 F: Phil 3606 – Contemporary Moral Problems
S: Phil 1003 – Introduction to Ethics
PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY AND BIOETHICS
Quoted in Betancourt, Sarah. 2023. "A bill that would let prisoners trade organs for a reduced sentence faces significant blowback." GBH News, February 2.
Matos, Elizabeth, Takunda Matose, and Brittany White, interview by William Weber. 2022. A Physician's Duty to Treat: Rethinking Medical Ethics in Carceral Spaces. At the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University
Hershman, Lynn, George Church, Richard Novak, and Thomas Huber, interview by Takunda Matose. 2021. “Bioethics and World-making: Creativity in Synthetic Biology.” At the New Museum, New York, NY
2019-20 Robert Penn Warren Seminar Series on the Ethics of Genetic Technologies
Matose, Takunda. 2011. "Tackling the Grand Challenges of Global Health." Science Progress Magazine, July 7: 2011.
Matose, Takunda. 2012. "The Problems with Pre-Exposure HIV Treatment." Science Progress Magazine, August 13: 2012.
INVITED TALKS
2023 Matose, Takunda. "Reconsidering Fairness." Works in Progress Series. Center for Population Level Bioethics, Rutgers University
2023 Matose, Takunda. "Race and Pandemics." PL277 Medical Ethics Guest Lecture. Bard College Berlin.
2022 Matose, Takunda. "Reconsidering Fairness." Loyola Ethics and Values Symposium, Loyola University Chicago.
2010 Matose, Takunda. “Human Subjects Protections and the Cognitively Impaired,” Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania.
GRANTS
Current Research
PI: Vukov, Joseph; Burns, Michael
Supporting: Matose, Takunda
Title: Humanizing STEM Education: Navigating Future Challenges Through Integrated Instruction
Funding Agency: National Endowment for the Humanities
Amount: $149,890
OTHER EXPERIENCE
Vanderbilt University Planning Intern to Dr. Paul Taylor (Summer 2019; Fall 2019; Spring 2020)
Vanderbilt University - Social Visibility Conference Graduate Assistant (Spring 2019)
The University of Pennsylvania - Research Assistant to Dr. Art Caplan (Spring 2009)
DESCRIPTION OF DISSERTATION
My dissertation explores the question of whether the best way for a society to secure justice in health care is by ensuring equal distributions of health-relevant goods to individuals or by ensuring that these individuals stand in relations of equality. To answer this question, I use empirical studies in health and explore examples from non-clinical health practices and conceptual bioethics. I then apply insights from these resources to a debate in liberal political philosophy. I focus on how the social dimensions of health challenge standard distributive approaches to justice. For example, vaccinations aim to prevent group-level harms like community spread of disease while producing group-level benefits like herd immunity. Importantly, while interventions like vaccines involve distributions aimed at individuals, they also revolve around non-distributive considerations aimed at protecting members of the most vulnerable health groups. I try to show that distributive approaches to justice in health care are best equipped to address only distributive considerations. On the other hand, relational approaches track both the distributive and non-distributive dimensions of justice in health care. I argue that a focus on both these dimensions of justice is necessary to address all health-relevant injustices, including those that are indexed to group membership and social factors. If this account of the social dimensions of health is correct, my view is that the best way to secure the just and equitable consideration of all individuals in health care is to take groups to be legitimate units of moral concern while ensuring that members of a society stand in relations of equality.
DEPARTMENTAL AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
2023-Present Frontiers in Genetics – ELSI in Science and Genetics – Review Editor
2022-Present Loyola University Chicago, Department of Philosophy – Bioethics Committee
Loyola University Chicago, Bioethics Club – Faculty Mentor
Loyola University Chicago, Department of Philosophy – Convener of the Social, Political, and Legal Workshop
2019-2021 Vanderbilt Philosophy Graduate Association (PGSA) – President
Vanderbilt Philosophy Bioethics Major Curriculum Development
2018-2019 Vanderbilt University PGSA – Research Committee
2019 Global Bioethics - Reviewer
COMMUNITY SERVICE
2022 Faculty Mentor in the Leadership Alliance
2018-2021 Reciprocal Education and Community Healing (REACH) at Riverbend Maximum Security Institute, Nashville, TN
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
American Philosophical Association
American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities
International Association of Bioethics
Feminist Approaches to Bioethics
REFERENCES
Available upon request