James F. Childress is the John Allen Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics and Professor of Medical Education at the University of Virginia. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and, in 1998, was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He is also a fellow of the Hastings Center. Childress served on numerous bioethical committees including the presidentially appointed National Bioethics Advisory Commission, the national Task Force on Organ Transplantation, and the Board of Directors of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). 

Childress is the author of numerous articles and several books in ethics, especially biomedical and political ethics. His books include Principles of Biomedical Ethics (with Tom L. Beauchamp), Priorities in Biomedical Ethics; Who Should Decide? Paternalism in Health Care; and Practical Reasoning in Bioethics. In 2002 he received the University of Virginia's highest honor, The Thomas Jefferson Award. For his lifetime contribution to ethics, Childress was presented with the Hastings Center’s Henry Knowles Beecher Award in 2011. 

Homepage of Professor Childress