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Theo Schall, assistant professor of health policy and management in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences, has been appointed to the Secretary’s Advisory Committee for Human Research Protections (SACHRP), which provides expert advice and recommendations to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on issues related to the protection of human participants in biomedical and behavioral research.

As a member of the committee, Schall will be expected to advise the secretary on how to improve the quality of the human research protection system, which includes principal investigators, institutional review boards, administrators, institutional officials and HHS offices, including the Office for Human Research Protections.

“I’m excited to get to work, with colleagues, on the ongoing challenge of balancing protection of vulnerable research participants with the need to include diverse populations in studies in order to ensure equitable access to scientific innovations,” says Schall, whose three-year term begins this spring.

Schall, a bioethicist and health services researcher, is an expert on the ethics of transgender medicine with a mixed-method research portfolio exploring structural barriers to the health of sexual and gender minorities. His current projects include analyses of medical association statements and insurance denials for pediatric gender-affirming care, and development of shared decision-making tools for primary care patients.

In addition to SACHRP, Schall serves on the Ethics Committee of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and the Policy and Government Affairs Committee of GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality. He also co-chairs the LGBTQIA+ Affinity Group of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.

More information about SACHRP can be found on the HHS website.