Dr. Lydie Fialova

Medical doctor, anthropologist, bioethicist. 

Lydie Fialová studied medicine, philosophy, and cultural history in Prague and Tübingen, social anthropology in Edinburgh and London, with research and clinical internships in Spain, Mexico, and Israel, and postdoctoral fellowship in the history and philosophy of science in Boston. After brief period of clinical training in child psychiatry, and while conducting ethnographic research in psychiatric hospitals, she had been teaching biomedical ethics, anthropology, and humanities for over a decade, most recently at Edinburgh Medical School as a theme head for medical ethics, and deputy director of the Mason Institute for Medicine, Life Sciences, and the Law.

Taking a career break while living with her family in the Scottish Highlands and home-educating her children, she returned to her interest in environmental ethics, ecology, and ecological humanities, and participating on local projects of landscape regeneration and nature education. She has also been contributing as as writer, researcher and consultant to international projects in ecological medicine and planetary health, ethics, and medical education, collaborating with Heidelberg University, Charles University, The New School of the Anthropocene, and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. She designed and is involved in collaborative teaching of two courses for international medical students: ‘Being Alive. Humans in the Web of Life’ based on readings from biology, anthropology, and philosophy; and ‘Health Impacts of the Ecological and Climate Crises’, addressing the complexities of pollution, biodiversity destruction, and climate change.

After moving to Berlin she joined PIK as a visiting researcher in 2025, working on an integrative, participative research project in planetary health. She is interested in methodological and conceptual issues of interdisciplinary collaboration, community- and place-based research approaches, and in the ethical dimension of planetary transformations.