Public trust in science, medicine, and public health is showing signs of strain. In the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, skepticism has sharpened around everything from health guidance to the role of expertise itself. As trust erodes, ethics-informed decision-making becomes harder to recognize—and harder still to implement.
Amid growing questions about the future of our scientific institutions, a particularly pressing one looms: how to uphold ethical policy and practice when trust is in short supply.
On November 13, 2025, The Greenwall Foundation will host this year’s William C. Stubing Memorial Lecture in person in New York City and online. Robert Califf, MD, former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Instructor in Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at Duke University School of Medicine, will discuss the growing crisis of trust in science, medicine, and public health—and the ethics challenges and opportunities it presents for shaping policy and practice in uncertain times. Dr. Califf will be joined in conversation by Matthew Herper, an award-winning journalist and Senior Writer covering medicine at STAT.
The event will begin with a reception at 5:30pm ET, followed by the moderated conversation beginning at 6:30pm ET. An audience question-and-answer session will follow.
How to Register
Register to attend the event in person here.
Register for the livestream here.
Registration is free and open to all, but in-person seating is limited.
About the William C. Stubing Memorial Lecture
William C. Stubing served as President of The Greenwall Foundation for 21 years. In 2016, the Foundation established the William C. Stubing Memorial Lecture in honor of its beloved former President, who guided the Foundation to its current focus on bioethics. Previous Lectures have covered timely topics in bioethics: the opioid crisis, climate change and mental health, automation and inequity in healthcare, the public health and ethical challenges of COVID-19, the social inequities revealed by the pandemic, physician aid-in-dying, drug pricing, and genome editing.
