Bio
In addition to her work as an artist, Madeleine Schachter is Assistant Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine, where she teaches Medical Ethics and Advanced Clinical Ethics. She also serves on an Institutional Review Board, where she reviews biomedical research on human subjects relating to cancer and relating to global health. She is a member of the Ethics Committee of New York Presbyterian Hospital. In addition, she is Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she teaches Bioethics to medical students and from which she has received letters of commendation for her teaching. She previously chaired the New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Patients & Family Advisory Council before joining the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Patients & Family Advisory Council for Quality.
She has been certified as a New York State certified Emergency Medical Technician and has also been certified in training on incident management and command systems and hazardous materials by FEMA, in hostile environment awareness training, concussion training for youth sports coaches, and by the Collaborative Institution Training Initiative. She also is a Crime Victims Treatment Center advocate, supporting survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence in emergency departments.
Previously, she practiced law for 30 years, most recently as Partner/Global Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at the international law firm Baker & McKenzie, where she worked exclusively on global pro bono and community service, diversity and inclusion, and sustainability matters with the firm’s 4000 lawyers based in more than 40 countries.
Examples of her pro bono work include drafting harmonized model legislation to address disaster response; providing on-the-ground support including in the operating room to an international medical mission as it performed volunteer restorative surgery on under-privileged children with cleft lips and cleft palates in Leyte, The Philippines; and providing legal and policy guidance in consultation with governments, such as in Yemen and Nepal.
Ms. Schachter developed a global corporate social responsibility platform for public-private partnerships that focuses on humanitarian and health issues to address global poverty through demand-driven innovation. She is the author of the book Global Social Investment: A Practical Handbook for Corporate Social Responsibility Programs, which explores the theories and practice, pragmatic approaches, and metrics and methodological tools for impact measurement.
She is the author of several books: Law of Internet Speech (now in its third edition), Informational and Decisional Privacy, and The Law Professor’s Handbook: A Practical Guide to Teaching Law. Ms. Schachter’s work has also been published in legal and medical journals and treatises, including on global biomedical and legal ethics.
She also wrote a children’s story, Fire Buddy, which recounts a mother’s explanation of a death to a child, assuring the child that the deceased was lucky to have had the child for his friend. The book has been translated into French, Spanish, Romanian, Ukrainian, and Hebrew.
While working full-time, she served as an Adjunct Professor at Fordham Law School for a decade, teaching JD and LLM candidates courses on Internet speech, privacy, and media law.
Ms. Schachter serves on the Board of Trustees of Children of Heroes, which provides emergency relief, legal aid, and psychosocial therapy to children bereaved by the loss of one or both parents due to the war in Ukraine; the Board of Trustees of Children’s Aid, which provides comprehensive support to children, youth, and their families in targeted high-needs New York City neighborhoods; the Board of Trustees of Hospices of Hope, which provides hospice and palliative care to adult and pediatric patients in Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Albania and Greece; and on the Board of Directors of Autism Parents Connect, which empowers carers of persons with autism. Previously, she was a member of the Board of Directors of Concern Worldwide US, which works with the world’s most vulnerable people in more than two dozen countries; and of the International NGO Safety and Security Association, which works to improve the quality and effectiveness of safety and security for humanitarian relief and development assistance workers operating in dangerous environments.
She has traveled to Aruba, Bahamas, Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, England, France, French Polynesia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland , Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Lebanon, Liberia, Mexico, Moldova, Nepal, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Scotland, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, South Sudan, Spain, Switzerland, Tanzania, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela, Wales, Yemen, and extensively throughout the United States.
Ms. Schachter is a Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, from which she received a BA in Medical Ethics (a major she designed, the first of its kind in any higher academic institution) and Political Science. She received her JD degree from New York University School of Law, where she was a Root Tilden Scholar.
She studied classical ballet as a tutorial student and enjoys cardio ballet and horse riding.