Ezekiel J. Emanuel is a visiting lecturer in law at Yale Law School. Emanuel is also vice provost for Global Initiatives and the Diane Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds appointments in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy in the Perelman School of Medicine and the Department of Health Care Management in the Wharton School.
Emanuel is an oncologist and world leader in health policy and bioethics. He is special advisor to the director general of the World Health Organization, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was founding chair of the Department of Bioethics at the NIH. He served as a special advisor on health policy to the director of the Office of Management and Budget and National Economic Council. In this role, he was instrumental in drafting the Affordable Care Act. He served on the Biden-Harris Transition Covid Advisory Board.
Emanuel received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his Ph.D. in political philosophy from Harvard University. After completing an internship and residency in internal medicine at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital and an oncology fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Emanuel joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School in 1992.
He completed visiting professorships at UCLA Anderson School of Management, Institute of Advanced Studies Tel Aviv University, Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs, New York University Law School, Case Western Reserve University School of Law, University of Pittsburg, Cleveland Clinic, Kovitz Professor Stanford University Medical School, David Barap Brin Professor Johns Hopkins Medical School, and Institute of Health Professions Massachusetts General Hospital.
Emanuel is the most widely cited bioethicist in history with more than 350 publications. He has authored and edited 16 books, the latest of which, “Eat Your Ice Cream,” was published in Jan. 2026.
He was elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Association of American Physicians, and the Royal College of Medicine (UK). In 2026, Emanuel was elected to the American Philosophical Society (APS) and selected as The Hastings Center’s 2026 Bioethics Founders Award Honoree.
