Whitny Braun

Whitny Braun de Lobatón (born April 22, 1984) is an American bioethicist, professor, investigative researcher, documentary filmmaker and podcaster who has been featured on the Discovery Channel as the host and executive producer of "Undiscovered: The Lost Lincoln" and co-hosts the podcast "The Murders at Starved Rock with Andy Hale". She has also been featured on NPR^[1] and the National Geographic Channel television program "Taboo".^[2][3] She has served as a contributor for the Huffington Post. Her major academic work is centered in the fields of bioethics and public health and has focused on the Jain practice of Sallekhana^[4][5][6] and the Parsi practice of Dakhmenashini. She is currently the director of the master's in bioethics and professor of bioethics at Loma Linda University.

Braun has written for the Huffington Post^[7] and published academically on the topic of healthcare in the American prison system, specifically with regard to organ donation and the death penalty.^[8] Her main academic research has focused on the ongoing legal battle over Sallekhana in the Indian courts and possible American legal precedent for the practice. She has spoken at several international conferences about world religions' philosophical approaches to artificial reproductive technology and the embryo industry in the United States as well as the ethics of disaster management and quarantine. She has been published in "Natural Transitions" magazine, a publication which examines options for the dying process^[9] and has been interviewed on the topic of Sallekhana by Scientific American Magazine.^[10] Her research has also been featured in an interview with Steve Lopez^[6] of the LA Times.