Peter A. DePergola II

Dr. Peter DePergola is Chief Ethics Officer, Senior Director of Clinical Ethics, Chief of the Ethics Consultation Service, Chair of the Ethics Advisory Committee, Director of the Clinical and Organizational Rotations in Ethics (CORE) Programs, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Baystate Health / University of Massachusetts Medical School - Baystate. He serves concurrently as the Shaughness Family Chair for the Study of the Humanities, Associate Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities (with joint appointments in Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Biomedical Sciences), Founding Director of the Bioethics and Medical Humanities Programs, and Founding Executive Director and Senior Research Fellow of the Saint Augustine Center for Ethics, Religion, and Culture at Elms College. Dr. DePergola holds secondary academic and research appointments at more than a dozen additional universities, associations, institutes, academies, and societies.

In addition to Dr. DePergola’s system-wide clinical, research, organizational, and academic responsibilities at Baystate Health, he serves as Ethicist-in-Residence to the Institutional Review Boards, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, and Organ Donation and Allocation Committee. In 2013, Dr. DePergola became the organization’s first full-time clinical bioethicist, where he has since developed innovative, nationally-recognized policy related to public health pandemics, resource scarcity, and end-of-life care. In 2017, he became the youngest senior leader in the 140-year history of Baystate Health.

Dr. DePergola earned a BA (summa cum laude) in philosophy and religious studies at Elms College, an MTS (magna cum laude) in theological ethics at Boston College, and a PhD (summa cum laude) in healthcare ethics at Duquesne University. A current ThD candidate in neurotheological ethics at Pontifex University, he completed a residency in neurocritical care ethics at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, a fellowship in neuropsychiatric ethics at Tufts University School of Medicine, and advanced training in neurothanatological ethics at Harvard Medical School. Dr. DePergola is board certified in both healthcare ethics consultation (HEC-C) by the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities and in clinical thanatology (CT) by the Association of Death Education and Counseling.

Dr. DePergola is Contributing Editor of Synapsis: A Health Humanities Journal, Associate Editor of the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry and Editor-in-Chief of both the Journal of Health Ethics and Charity in Truth: A Journal of Ethics, Religion, and Culture. He is an editorial board member of multiple scholarly journals and academic presses, and the author of numerous peer-reviewed publications that span the fields of philosophy, theology, business, law, medicine, bioethics, and medical humanities. Dr. DePergola’s first book, Forget Me Not: The Neuroethical Case Against Memory Manipulation (Vernon Press, 2018), has been critically acclaimed as a landmark achievement in the field of neuroethics and was the #1 New Release in Medical Ethics on Amazon at the time of its publication.

Dr. DePergola's pro bono work includes serving as expert medical witness on ethical issues for the Public Defender Agency of Massachusetts, expert ethics consultant on bioethical issues for the Massachusetts State Senate, expert bioethics consultant on scarce resource allocation for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and expert bioethics consultant on neuroethical issues for the United States Department of Defense. He is appointed Bureau Expert of the International Neuroethics Society, and has consulted on numerous high-profile international bioethics cases, including the world’s first (proposed) head transplant in Italy, deep brain stimulation for locked-in-syndrome in Malaysia, opt-out organ donation legislation in France and Portugal, and novel neuropsychiatric treatments for existential suffering in Canada, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

In 2020, Dr. DePergola became the youngest tenured faculty member and endowed chair in the 100-year history of Elms College. The recipient of various honors and awards for academic scholarship and healthcare leadership, his current research explores the theoretical and empirical metaphysics of hope, particularly as it relates to the neurotheological ethics of moral virtue, hyperdimensional consciousness, and end-of-life decision making.