Dr. Aurora M. Washington is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill training in Clinical Ethics and the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Precision Medicine, as well as intern in the Office of Graduate Education as an Education Research Scholar collaborating with administrators to evaluate and improve professional development, mental health, and mentoring for STEM graduate students. Her work is currently focused on Bioethics research as it relates to Predictive Biology and the integration of artificial intelligence into healthcare.

Dr. Washington earned her B.S in Biology from Tougaloo College where she was a Jackson Heart Study scholar. She completed a one-year postbaccalaureate program in Neuroscience before matriculating into the Biotechnology Ph.D. program at Brown University. As a graduate student, she studied in a neural tissue engineering lab where she developed and characterized species-specific cortical microtissues for toxicity testing. Dr. Washington is passionate about science communication, creating equitable training environments, and assuring health equity, which she has demonstrated in her academic journey as well as by working with organizations like the Leadership Alliance Consortium, the Freedom Summer Collegiate Program, and the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council. Her personal goal is to improve health outcomes through research and enhance STEM education on all levels.