Gianna R. Strand is Director of Research at The Completed Life Initiative. Born and raised in the New York City area, she moved to Tennessee for college where her first clinical student practicum was at a hospice center in Nashville. After graduating, she worked in experimental therapeutics and transplant oncology at Dana-Faber/Harvard Medical Cancer Center and the University of Virginia Medical Center before returning to NYC. While caring for critically ill cancer patients, Gianna saw incredible pharmacologic breakthroughs but also the limits of modern medicine and the equally urgent need for better research and advocacy surrounding end-of-life care.

Gianna received her undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University with a double major in medical health science and French literature. She received her Masters degree in clinical bioethics from Columbia University. Her thesis focused on the ethics of pediatric haploidentical transplants. She received her doctorate in research ethics and clinical ethics consultation from Loyola University Chicago. Her thesis dissertation argued the need for contextual vulnerability assessments to ensure fair subject selection in the design of renal xenotransplant clinical trials. She is a member of the Empire State Bioethics Consortium and holds a certification from the American Society of Exercise Physiologists.

Outside of her clinical and research work, Gianna lives with her rescue cat Vandy. She is an avid reader, hiker, and yogi.