Beth Fischer, PhD

Dr. Fischer is Director of the Survival Skills and Ethics Program at the University of Pittsburgh, where she is an Instructor in Education. She has a diverse background combining formal training in science, communication, and education with 10 years of experience as a research assistant in a neuroscience laboratory. She has worked full time on the Survival Skills and Ethics Project since 1994, and has extensive experience in developing and offering educational workshops for individuals ranging in level from undergraduate students to senior faculty and administrators.

Dr. Fischer lectures regularly at the University of Pittsburgh and has run invited workshops on survival skills and ethics at a number of locations, including the National Institutes of Health, the Marine Biological Laboratories, Brown University, and Weill Medical College. She has spoken at meetings of the Society for Neuroscience, American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA), and Council of Biology Editors.

In 1995, she began offering workshops internationally, and has provided invited workshops on professional development to researchers in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. She has served on the International Advisory Board for the Society of Neuroscientists of Africa since 1996.

Dr. Fischer was a consultant for the Institute of Medicine's report on Integrity in Scientific Research, assisted the Society for Neuroscience in developing a code of responsible conduct in publishing (see: www.sfn.org/guidelines/), and was an invited expert at the NIH Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Expert Workshop.

Selected Publications:

Fischer BA and Zigmond MJ. Promoting Responsible Conduct in Research through "Survival Skills" Workshops: Some Mentoring is Best Done in a Crowd. Science and Engineering Ethics, 2001, 7:4, 563-587.

Fischer BA and Zigmond MJ. Survival Skills for Graduate School and Beyond. In Anderson, M (ed). The Experience of Being in Graduate School: An Exploration. New Directions in Education Series, number 101, San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1998, pp. 29-40.

Fischer BA and Zigmond MJ. Scientific Publishing. In Chadwick, R (ed) Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, volume 4. San Diego: Academic Press, 1998, pp. 29-37.