Tanvee Sinha, Kaitlin Burge, Amy Jasani, Hana Habchi, Sunya Reddy Gregory Pence, Ph.D., professor and coach of team is in the backThe University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Bioethics Bowl team claimed the 2019 National Championship title at the Bioethics National Championship. UAB defeated Georgetown Univeristy in the final match at the University of South Alabama to secure its third bioethics championship in eight years.
UAB also won titles in 2011 and 2016.
“These students’championship builds on their extensive knowledge of bioethics, each having had two or three courses in this area,” said Gregory Pence, Ph.D., professor in UAB’s Department of Philosophy, director of UAB’s Early Medical Student Acceptance Program and the Bioethics Bowl team coach. “Given how strong UAB’s pre-med programs are, it is natural that we should produce so many championships.”
The five team members, all students in the Early Medical Acceptance Program and Honors College, include Kaitlin Burge, a junior from Huntsville, Alabama, majoring in philosophy; Hana Habchi, a junior from Huntsville majoring in biology; Amy Jasani, a sophomore from Atlanta, Georgia, majoring in neuroscience; Sunya Reddy, a sophomore from Atlanta, majoring in public health; and Tanvee Sinha, a sophomore from Cupertino, California, majoring in neuroscience.
Achievements like the Bioethics Bowl team national championship align with the strategic objective to strengthen and expand innovative academic programs to enhance UAB’s national and global reputation, as directed in the institution’s strategic plan, Forging the Future.
The Bioethics Bowl is an intercollegiate, academic competition among undergraduate students at accredited four-year institutions of higher education. The event occurs each April on a college campus. Unlike the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl, which debates cases across the curriculum from agricultural and engineering ethics to issues of grade inflations and communications, the Bioethics Bowl focuses exclusively on ethical issues in the health and biological sciences.