Life & Times - The Ethics Project

Alexander M. Capron is a professor of law and medicine at the University of Southern California. He is also Co-Director of the Pacific Center for Health Policy and Ethics, a campus-wide interdisciplinary research and education center. Professor Capron specializes in legal-medical issues and biomedical ethics. Appointed by President Clinton, he serves as a member of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. He was executive director of the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research.

M. Joycelyn Elders, M.D. is a Professor Emeritus of pediatric endocrinology at the University of Arkansas School of Medical Science. She was board certified in pediatric endocrinology in 1978. She also holds a Master of Science degree in biochemistry.

In 1987 Dr. Elders was appointed Director of the Arkansas Department of Health. In 1993 President Bill Clinton nominated Dr. Elders as U.S. Surgeon General, a post she served until 1995. Dr. Elders has published many articles for medical research publications and holds multiple honorary doctorate of medical sciences degrees and honorary doctorate of letters degrees.

Mark O. Hiepler is a partner in the Oxnard, California law firm of Hiepler & Hiepler. The National Law Journal named him one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.

His highly publicized cases include a record-setting $89 million dollar bad faith verdict on behalf of his late sister who had breast cancer. At the time, it was the largest jury award ever in a case against an insurance company sued for denying health care coverage. Mr. Hiepler handles wrongful death, catastrophic injury and insurance denial cases throughout California and the United States.

Bill Boyarsky is senior consultant at the Center For Governmental Studies, a non-profit organization researching political reform, and he teaches political science at the University of Southern California. He is writing a biography of the late California political leader, Jesse M. Unruh, to be published by the University of California Press.

Boyarsky was on the staff of the Los Angeles Times from 1970 to 2001, serving as general assignment reporter, political writer, city-county bureau chief, columnist, and city editor. He was part of teams that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993, 1995 and 1998. He is the author of Backroom Politics, co-authored by his wife, Nancy Boyarsky; The Rise of Ronald Reagan; Ronald Reagan, His Life and Rise to the Presidency and Los Angeles: City of Dreams.

Judy Muller reports for World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Nightline, 20/20 and other ABC News broadcasts.

Since she joined ABC News in 1990, Muller has covered stories ranging from the trial of Rodney King and the subsequent riots in Los Angeles in 1992, to the 1994 L.A. earthquake and the O.J. Simpson case. She was part of the Nightline team that received a duPont-Columbia Award and an Emmy Award for coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and for the O.J. Simpson case. Before she joined ABC News, Muller spent nine years as a correspondent for CBS News.

Muller is a graduate of Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia. She is a regular contributor to NPR's Morning Edition and is the author of Now This…Radio, Television and the Real World.

Van Gordon Sauter is former president of CBS News and Fox News. He spent more than 30 years in communications, working in print and broadcast journalism. From 1968-1986 he worked in a variety of jobs at CBS, where he was president of CBS News from 1982-1983 and Executive Vice President of News from 1983-1986. Sauter was also Vice President and General Manager of the CBS station in Los Angeles, KNXT from 1977-1980.

Sauter spent two years as president and general manager of KVIE-TV (PBS) in Sacramento from 1995-1998. There he created California Heartland, a statewide weekly syndicated program about agriculture.

He is a graduate of Ohio State University and has been a reporter for The Chicago Daily News, the Detroit Free Press and the New Bedford (Mass.) Standard-Times.

Jeff L. Wald is News Director at KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, a Tribune Broadcasting station. This is Wald's second time as news director at KTLA, where he has successfully positioned KTLA's News at Ten and The KTLA Morning News as number one in Southern California. He previously served in the position from 1981--1990, and earned five Emmy Awards for the station's news coverage and broadcasts.

From 1990 to 1995 Wald was Executive Director of News Programming at KCOP-TV in Los Angeles.

Wald was also a news talent agent at Media People in Beverly Hills, California. He worked as a news consultant at Frank N. Magid Associates in Marion, Iowa and San Francisco. He was assignment editor at KNXT (now KCBS) as well as KTTV in Los Angeles.

Bebe Moore Campbell is the author of three New York Times bestsellers: "Singing in the Comeback Choir," "Brothers and Sisters," and "What You Owe Me." The Washington Post called her "one of the most important African American writers of this century."

Bebe Moore Campbell has written articles for numerous national publications and she is a regular commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition.

Michael Josephson had successful careers in business, law and education before founding the nonprofit Joseph & Edna Josephson Institute of Ethics, which he named for his parents. The Institute is based in Marina del Rey, California. He also founded the CHARACTER COUNTS!™ Coalition, a partnership of over 400 educational and youth-serving organizations.

Michael Josephson's award-winning commentaries air daily on KNX News Radio in Southern California.

Rev. Kusala (Thich Tam-Thien) is an American born Bhikshu (monk) ordained in the Zen Tradition of Vietnam. He lives and works at the International Buddhist Meditation Center in the Korea town section of Los Angeles. Rev. Kusala facilitates meditation and discussion groups and gives presentations at local schools, colleges, and churches on Buddhism and social action.

Rev. Kusala is also the web-master for the International Buddhist Meditation Center, as well as his own site www.UrbanDharma.org.

Arianna Huffington is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of eight books. Her biography of Pablo Picasso was an international bestseller and was the basis for a feature film starring Anthony Hopkins. She is currently working on a book entitled, Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed is Undermining America.

In 1996 she teamed with Al Franken to provide political coverage for Comedy Central during the Republican and Democratic conventions. She serves on several boards dedicated to social and campaign reform.

Abby Mann is an award-winning screenwriter who is widely acknowledged as a leader in the genre of made-for-television movies. He received an Academy Award and the New York Film Critics Award for his screenplay for Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). He won Emmys for The Marcus-Nelson Murders (the 1973 Kojak pilot), Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story (1989) and Indictment: The McMartin Case (1995). Mann’s made-for-TV movies have covered a variety of controversial subjects. His television and film writing career spans four decades.

Richard Schickel, a film critic for Time magazine for over two decades, is also the author of more than twenty books. The latest of them, Matinee Idylls: Reflections on the Movies, was named a New York Times notable book. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences named his biography of film director D.W. Griffith as one of the 100 Best Books on Hollywood.

Schickel has also written, directed and produced a wide variety of television programs, including portraits of film directors Woody Allen and Sam Fuller.

Tom Selleck was under contract to Universal Studios when he landed the role of private investigator Thomas Magnum in the hit television series Magnum, P.I. During eight successful seasons, from 1980-1988, Selleck won an Emmy and a Golden Globe award for Magnum. Some of his film credits include roles in The High Road to China, Three Men and a Baby, Mr. Baseball, In and Out and The Love Letter. He also served as executive producer on several television projects, and he made his live stage debut in New York in July of 2001 in A Thousand Clowns.