Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1958, R. Alta Charo is a published scholar in the field of emerging technology and public policy, and professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW) as well as one of the leading bioethicists in the United States. As a Warren P. Knowles Professor with UW’s schools of law and medicine, Charo has dedicated her career to studying the relationship between law and medical research. Much of her work is focused on the advocacy of embryonic stem cell research and women’s health initiatives in the United States juxtaposed with the development of legal and government policy that protects the rights of human subjects involved in medical research.