Professor Woopen studied human medicine and philosophy in Cologne, Bonn and Hagen. From April 2012 to April 2016, she was chair of the German Ethics Council, and from 2014 to 2016, she was President of the 11th Global Summit of National Ethics Committees. She is also a member of the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee and of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.
At the University of Cologne, she is the Executive Director of ceres, the Cologne Center for Ethics, Rights, Economics, and Social Sciences of Health, which is dedicated to inter- and trans-disciplinary research and advisory work, in particular on the topics of aging and demographic change, digital transformation, and health literacy. As Professor of Medical Ethics and Theory, she is head of the Ethics research center in the faculty of Medicine. She is also Vice Dean of Academic Development and Gender.
