Expertise
- Scientific Statecraft
Professional Experience
Professor Barbara Pfeffer Billauer, a scholar of law, bioethics, and public health, is a Research Professor of Scientific Statecraft at The Institute of World Politics. In this capacity, she writes and lectures on the intersection of law, science, and public policy, specializing in the health impacts on society and the national security aspects of health, biothreats, and bioterrorism. She also holds a faculty appointment at the University of Porto International Program in Bioethics.
Dr. Billauer earned a B.S. (Hons.) in Biology and Education from Cornell University, a Master’s Degree in Occupational Health and Safety from N.Y.U., a law degree from Hofstra University, and a Ph.D. from Haifa University Faculty of Law, where her dissertation addressed cultural aspects of proving scientific causation in toxic tort cases. She has also obtained EPA-approved certification in asbestos management and risk policy and is a widely acknowledged expert in the field. After pursuing an additional year of doctoral-level education in public health, she was awarded a certificate in Public Health Policy and Risk Management from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
Prior to transitioning to academia, Dr. Billauer was a well-known trial lawyer, having been a partner at Stroock and Stroock and Lavan before starting her own firm representing doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers in medical malpractice, products liability, insurance, and toxic tort matters.
Professor Billauer has authored and edited five books and hundreds of articles addressed to both the lay and academic communities. She also is the author of the entry on Benjamin Franklin in John Wiley’s Encyclopedia of Political Thought, designated a major reference tool. A sought-after speaker at both professional and lay conferences, and widely published scholar whose works have appeared in law reviews and health and safety journals, she also writes a bi-monthly column for the American Council on Health and Safety geared to the lay community.
She has taught law students, judges, graduate students, and advanced health and safety practitioners courses on health law, scientific and medical evidence, and the importance of science-based policy in legislative planning. She has also developed a patented interactive educational program designed to teach lay decision-makers, including judges and legislators, how to incorporate scientific thinking, the scientific method, and basic statistics in decision-making. Judge Joan Gottschall, a senior judge of the federal court, called Dr. Billauer a “visionary” in her method of teaching science to legal and policy practitioners.
An active member of the civic community, Dr. Billauer has been elected Vice-President of the National Conference of Women’s Bar Associations four times and served as President of the Metropolitan Women’s Bar Association of New York. She sat as a Director of the American Committee of the Weizmann Institute of Science for over a decade, also chairing its legal committee, as well as being a Board member of the Supporters Group of the Laniado Hospital in Netanya. She has also written and lectured on leadership lessons from the Bible and has an avocation of studying and solving biblical mysteries from a scientific and historical perspective. Her works have been cited in Wikipedia.
A science-fiction buff, she was selected to attend the prestigious Clarion West Workshop and regularly incorporates science fiction literature in her teaching.
Contact: info@iwp.edu