Megan S. Wright

Professor of Law, Medicine, Sociology, and Bioethics
Affiliate Faculty, Rock Ethics Institute, College of the Liberal Arts
Affiliate Faculty, Bioethics Program, College of the Liberal Arts

Email msw331@psu.edu
Phone 814-867-2979
Curriculum Vitae Download/View CV
SSRN SSRN Profile

Education

Ph.D., University of Arizona
J.D., Yale Law School
M.A., University of Arizona
B.S., Brigham Young University

Biography

Megan S. Wright is a Professor of Law and Medicine — a joint appointment between Penn State Dickinson Law and the College of Medicine — as well as an affiliate faculty member with the Department of Sociology, the Rock Ethics Institute, and the Bioethics Program in the College of the Liberal Arts. She teaches Torts, Health Law, Bioethics and Law, and Public Health Law.

Professor Wright’s primary research concerns the intersection of medical decision making, disability, and private law, and she has published extensively in law reviews and peer-reviewed journals. Her research on dementia and supported healthcare decision making has been recognized by the American Society of Law, Medicine, and Ethics (ASLME) as one of the “most cutting-edge issues presented at the 2019 Health Law Professors Conference,” and this research was also selected for the 2018 Center for Health Law Studies at Saint Louis University School of Law and ASLME Health Law Scholars Workshop. She is currently beginning research on two new projects that focus on the role of healthcare organizations in mediating patient medical decision-making rights, and how to understand decisional capacity in various areas of law.

Professor Wright is trained as a sociologist, and she uses her social science methodological skills to conduct empirical studies in collaboration with other scholars. One area of her empirical research is on prosecutor discretion and decision making, and with her research collaborators, she conducted original experimental, quantitative, and qualitative research that has been published in leading law reviews. She is also the 2013 Conference on Empirical Legal Studies Poster Award winner for her research on “Mock Jurors’ Assessment of Blind Experts in Criminal Trials.”

Another area of her empirical research is funded by the National Institutes of Health to study the perspectives and experiences of people who decide to participate in a clinical trial of deep brain stimulation for severe brain injury (Co-Investigator, “Cognitive Restoration: Neuroethics and Disability Rights,” BRAIN Initiative: Research on the Ethical Implications of Advancements in Neurotechnology and Brain Science, National Institutes of Health: R01[1RF1MH1238-01], 9/17/19-8/31/23). A related study examines issues of post-trial access for individuals who participate in experimental deep brain stimulation trials (Co-Investigator, “Post-trial Access, Clinical Care, Psychosocial Support, and Scientific Progress in Experimental Deep Brain Stimulation Research,” National Institutes of Health: R01[MH133657], 8/18/23-5/31/27).

Professor Wright also collaborates with colleagues at Penn State College of Medicine. Her research with Public Health Sciences faculty examines the effects of laws governing pregnant women with opioid use disorder on health outcomes, and this work is funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (Co-Investigator, “COVID-19, Health Systems, and Vulnerable Populations: Policies Affecting Maternal Opioid Use During Pregnancy,” AHRQ: R01[HS028651-01A1], 9/30/22-9/29-23).

Professor Wright joined Penn State from Weill Cornell Medical College, where she was a Postdoctoral Associate of Medical Ethics. Concurrently, she served as a Research Fellow and Senior Adviser to the Consortium for the Advanced Study of Brain Injury Project at the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School. Professor Wright has also served as a Law and Social Science Research Fellow at the James E. Rogers College of Law and as a qualitative analyst at the Southwest Institute for Research on Women, both at the University of Arizona. She earned a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Arizona, and a B.S. in Sociology from Brigham Young University.

Bioethics and Law
Health Law (Formerly Introduction to Health Law)
Public Health Law
Torts

Healthcare Decision Making

Resuscitating Consent, 63 B.C. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming).

Implementing Ethical and Legal Supported Decision Making: Some Unresolved Issues, __ Am. J. Bioethics __ (forthcoming 2021)

Legal Issues in Dementia, in The Behavioral Neurology of Dementia (Bruce Miller & Brad Bouve eds. forthcoming), with Jalayne Arias and Ana Tyler.

Legal Issues in Dementia, in THE BEHAVIORAL NEUROLOGY OF DEMENTIA (BRUCE MILLER & BRAD BOUVE eds. forthcoming), with Jalayne Arias and Ana Tyler.

Equality of Autonomy? Physician Aid in Dying and Supported Decision Making, 63 ARIZ. L. REV. 157 (2021).

Dementia, Cognitive Transformation, and Supported Decision Making, 20 AM. J. BIOETHICS 88 (2020).

Dementia, Autonomy, and Supported Healthcare Decision Making, 79 MD. L. REV. 257 (2020).

Selected for Health Law Scholars Workshop, American Society for Law, Medicine, & Ethics

Dementia, Healthcare Decision Making, and Disability Law, 47 J.L. MED. & ETHICS 25 (2019).

Selected for Health Law Professors Conference Symposium Issue (8/150 selected)

End of Life and Autonomy: The Case for Relational Nudges in End-of-Life Decision-Making Law and Policy, 77 MD. L. REV. 1062 (2018).

Change without Change? Assessing Medicare Reimbursement for Advance Care Planning, 48 HASTINGS CTR. REP. 8 (2018).

Guardianship and End-of-Life Decision Making, 175 JAMA INTERNAL MED. 1687 (2015), with Andrew B. Cohen, Leo Cooney, Jr., and Terri Fried (second author) (peer-reviewed).

Human Subjects Research

Repurposing Ethnography to Assess Consent Capacity, in RESEARCH INVOLVING PARTICIPANTS WITH COGNITIVE DISABILITY AND DIFFERENCE: ETHICS, AUTONOMY, INCLUSION, AND INNOVATION (eds. Ariel Cascio and Eric Racine 2019).

Legal Changes to Facilitate Inclusion of Participants with Impaired Cognition in Research, in RESEARCH INVOLVING PARTICIPANTS WITH COGNITIVE DISABILITY AND DIFFERENCE: ETHICS, AUTONOMY, INCLUSION, AND INNOVATION (eds. Ariel Cascio and Eric Racine 2019).

Comment, A Case for Randomized, Double-Blinded, Sham-Controlled Class III Medical Device Trials, 34 YALE L. & POL’Y REV. 199 (2016).

Heterogeneity in IRB Policies with Regard to Disclosures about Payment for Participation in Recruitment Materials, 42 J.L. MED. & ETHICS 375 (2014), with Christopher T. Robertson (peer- reviewed).

Empirical Legal Studies

A Case for Randomized, Double-Blinded, Sham-Controlled Class III Medical Device Trials, 34 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 199 (2016)

Inside the Black Box of Prosecutor Discretion, 55 U.C. Davis L. Rev. __ (forthcoming), with Shima Baradaran Baughman and Christopher Robertson.

Prosecutors and Mass Incarceration, 94 S. Cal. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming), with Shima Baradaran Baughman (second author).

Cracking the Black Box, Inquest (September 13, 2021), with Shima Baradaran Baughman and Christopher Robertson (third author).

Race and Class: A Randomized Experiment with Prosecutors, 16 j. empirical legal stud. 807 (2019), with Christopher T. Robertson and Shima Baradaran Baughman (third author) (peer-reviewed).

Mock Juror and Jury Assessment of Blind Expert Witnesses, in BLINDING AS A SOLUTION TO BIAS: STRENGTHENING BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE, FORENSIC SCIENCE, AND LAW (eds. Christopher T. Robertson and Aaron S. Kesselheim 2016), with Christopher T. Robertson and David V. Yokum.

Recipient of 2013 Conference on Empirical Legal Studies Poster Award

Installment Housing Contracts: Presumptively Unconscionable, 18 BERKELEY J. AFR.-AM. L. & POL’Y 97 (2016).

Symposium, Perceptions of Efficacy, Morality, and Politics of Potential Cadaveric Organ Transplantation Reforms: A Randomized Population-based Experiment, 77 LAW & CONTEMP. PROBS. 101 (2014), with Christopher T. Robertson and David V. Yokum (third author).

Severe Brain Injury and Law: Consortium for the Advanced Study of Brain Injury

Regulating Post-Trial Access to In-Dwelling Class III Neural Devices, in The Future of Medical Device Regulation: Innovation and Protection (I. Glenn Cohen et al. eds., forthcoming), with Joseph J. Fins.

Olmstead Enforcements for Moderate to Severe Brain Injury: The Pursuit of Civil Rights through an Application of Law, Neuroscience, and Ethics, 95 Tulane L. Rev. 525 (2021), with Zachary E. Shapiro, Chaarushena Deb, Caroline Lawrence, Allison Rabkin Golden, Jaclyn Wilner, Allison Durkin, Zoe M. Adams, Wenqing Zhao, Keturah James, Adam Pan, and Joseph J. Fins (eleventh author).

In Pursuit of Agency ex Machina: Expanding the Map in Severe Brain Injury, __ AJOB Neuroscience __ (forthcoming), with Joseph J. Fins, Joseph T. Giacino, Jaimie Henderson, and Nicholas D. Schiff.

The Neglect of Persons with Severe Brain Injury in the United States: An International Human Rights Analysis, HEALTH & HUMAN RIGHTS J. (forthcoming) with Tamar Ezer and Joseph J. Fins (second author) (peer-reviewed).

Olmstead Enforcements for Moderate to Severe Brain Injury: The Pursuit of Civil Rights through an Application of Law, Neuroscience, and Ethics, 95 TULANE L. REV. __ (forthcoming), with Zachary E. Shapiro, D. Chaarushena, Allison Rabkin Golden, Jaclyn Wilner, Caroline Lawrence, Allison Durkin, Zoe M. Adams, Wenqing Zhao, Keturah James, Adam Pan, and Joseph J. Fins (eleventh author).

Regulating Post-Trial Access to In-Dwelling Class III Neural Devices, in INNOVATION AND PROTECTION: THE FUTURE OF MEDICAL DEVICE REGULATION (forthcoming), with Joseph J. Fins.

Disorders of Consciousness and Disability Law, 95 MAYO CLINIC PROCEEDINGS P1732 (2020), with Joseph J. Fins and Samuel Bagenstos (second author) (peer-reviewed).

Mayo Proceedings Podcast

The Neglect of Persons with Severe Brain Injury in the United States: An International Human Rights Analysis, 22 Health & Human Rights J. 265 (2020) with Tamar Ezer and Joseph J. Fins (second author) (peer-reviewed).

Nothing Generic About It: Promoting Therapeutic Access by Overcoming Regulatory and Legal Barriers to a Robust Generic Medical Device Market, 98 N.C. L. REV. 595 (2020), with Adam Pan, Keturah James, Zachary E. Shapiro, and Joseph J. Fins (fourth author).

Reviewed in The Regulatory Review

Severe Brain Injury, Disability, and the Law: Achieving Justice for a Marginalized Population, 45 FLA. ST. U. L. REV. 313 (2018), with Nina Varsava, Joel Ramirez, Kyle Edwards, Nathan Guevremont, Tamar Ezer, and Joseph J. Fins.

When Biomarkers Are Not Enough: FDA Evaluation of Effectiveness of Neuropsychiatric Devices for Disorders of Consciousness, 21 STANFORD TECH. L. REV. 276 (2018), with Keturah James, Adam Pan, and Joseph J. Fins.

Disorders of Consciousness, Agency, and Healthcare Decision-Making: Lessons from a Developmental Model, 9 AJOB NEUROSCIENCE 55 (2018), with Claudia Kraft, Michael R. Ulrich, and Joseph J. Fins (peer-reviewed).

Rights Language and Disorders of Consciousness: A Call for Advocacy, 32 BRAIN INJURY 670 (2018), with Joseph J. Fins (second author) (peer-reviewed).

Guardianship and Clinical Research Participation: The Case of Wards with Disorders of Consciousness, 27 KENNEDY INST. ETHICS J. 43 (2017), with Michael R. Ulrich and Joseph J. Fins (peer-reviewed).

Rehabilitation, Education, and the Integration of Individuals with Severe Brain Injury into Civil Society: Towards an Expanded Rights Agenda in Response to New Insights from Translational Neuroethics and Neuroscience, 16 YALE J. HEALTH POL’Y L. & ETHICS 233 (2016), with Joseph J. Fins (peer-reviewed).

Whither the “Improvement Standard”? Coverage for Severe Brain Injury after Jimmo v. Sebelius, 44 J.L. MED. & ETHICS 182 (2016), with Joseph J. Fins, Claudia Kraft, Alix Rogers, Marina B. Romani, Samantha Godwin, and Michael R. Ulrich (second author) (peer-reviewed).

Lincoln’s Promise: Congress, Veterans, and Traumatic Brain Injury, HASTINGS CTR. FORUM BLOG, June 21, 2016, http://www.thehastingscenter.org/lincolns-promise-congress-veterans-and-traumatic-brain-injury/, with Michael R. Ulrich, Kyle Edwards, Nathan Guevremont, Joel Ramirez, Nina Varsava, and Joseph J. Fins (second author).

Substance Abuse

Community Engagement: Perspectives on an Essential Element of Juvenile Drug Courts Implementing Reclaiming Futures, 10 DRUG COURT REV. 116 (2016), with Alison Greene, Kendra Thompson-Dyck, Monica Davis, and Katie Haverly (third author) (peer-reviewed).

Book Reviews

DISABILITY STUDIES QUARTERLY (forthcoming) (reviewing MARA BUCHBINDER, SCRIPTING DEATH: STORIES OF ASSISTED DYING IN AMERICA (2021)).

LAW AND POLITICS BOOK REVIEW (forthcoming) (reviewing BIANCA EASTERLY, THE CHRONIC SILENCE OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN END OF LIFE POLICYMAKING IN THE UNITED STATES (2019)).

The Man Question: Male Subordination and Privilege, TEACHERS COLLEGE RECORD (2011) (reviewing Nancy E. Dowd’s THE MAN QUESTION (2010)).

Podcasts

Panelist, Pandemic Justice, Rock Ethics Institute Ethics Now Podcast, June 12, 2020.

Megan S. Wright

Education

Biography

Legal Statements