Board of Directors
Adrian Byram
Adrian Byram has been thinking about and researching end-of-life decision-making for the last decade. After retiring from a 40 year career as an entrepreneur and senior executive in the IT industry in 2012, he began a PhD program in neuroethics – a new field combining neuroscience and medical ethics – at the University of British Columbia (UBC). His thesis showed that the choices made by surrogate decision-makers for ICU patients often failed to meet patients’ values, and suggested new ways to ensure patients’ autonomy is truly respected. Since completing his PhD in 2019 he has collaborated with colleagues from UBC in researching how advance requests for Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) could be implemented in Canada. Most recently, he and his colleagues have testified to the Canadian Parliament about legislation to enable advance requests while maintaining strong guardrails against abuse.
Our social and medical systems today rarely inform us about the choices available to us in the last stages of our lives. By working with EOLCCA Adrian hopes to help his fellow Californians learn about the choices that are legitimately theirs, and empower them to exercise control over the last days, weeks, and months of their lives.
Adrian grew up in Ottawa and Toronto in Canada. He has a BSc and MSc in Math and Physics from the University of Toronto, and qualified for a PhD in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford University. He is very active in Sustainable Rossmoor – advocating for solar and EVs. He and his wife have been SF Ballet fans for decades and thoroughly enjoy the many arts opportunities available in SF and Berkeley.
