Ellen Wright Clayton

Ellen Wright Clayton is an American academic specialzing in law and medicine. She is the Rosalind E. Franklin Professor of Genetics at Vanderbilt University and chairwoman of the Institute of Medicine Board at the Population Health and Public Health Practice. She was the 2013 recipient of the David Rall Medal.

Early life
Wright Clayton was born in Houston, Texas, where she attended school. She graduated from Duke with a degree in zoology and then obtained master's degree in biochemistry from Stanford University. Some years later she got her degree in law from Yale, and medical degree from Harvard respectively.

Career
From 1988, Wright Clayton served as Vanderbilt University faculty member and since that time has published two books and over 150 peer-reviewed articles relating to law, medicine and public health. She serves on the advisory board panel of both the National Institutes of Health and Human Genome Organisation. In 2006, she was elected to Institute of Medicine and three years later became its council member.

In 2012, she began her three-year term as the Bachelor of Philosophy chairwoman at Vanderbilt University. Since November 6, 2013, she has served as Nashville Business Journal editor. Currently she teaches in both medical and law schools and is a director of Vanderbilt's Center for Genetics and Health Policy.

Clayton is a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Pediatric Society. She was elected a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics in 2023.

Personal life
On Sundays she sang in a choir.