About

Jonathan H. Marks is an author and speaker, a public health ethicist and human rights lawyer. He is Professor of Bioethics, Humanities, Philosophy, and Law and Director of the Bioethics Program at the Pennsylvania State University, and affiliate faculty in the School of International Affairs. He is also an academic member of Matrix Chambers, a leading group of human rights lawyers based in London.

Marks has published widely on the intersections of ethics, law, and policy—including human rights and professional ethics. His book, "The Perils of Partnership: Industry Influence, Institutional Integrity, and Public Health” (Oxford University Press, 2019), was shortlisted for the North American Society for Social Philosophy 2020 prize; the book expands on his TED talk, In Praise of Conflict, which received over a million views in just a few weeks.

His current projects include “What Will Become of Us?”—a book manuscript that examines (through a systemic ethical lens) plagues and pandemics from antiquity to the present day, as well as those that inevitably await us; the ethics of institutional crises (shifting the focus from trust to trustworthiness and institutional integrity); and an ethical assessment of legal tools to address climate change (including the right to a healthy environment, rights of nature, and ecocide).

Jonathan’s teaching has been featured in the New York Times. He has written for The Times (London), the New York Times, LA Times, The Nation magazine, and the Harvard Ethics Blog, as well as a variety of scholarly journals.  He has been interviewed by the New York Times, NPR, BBC, AP, and Voice of America (among others) on topics that include institutional ethics, professional ethics, international law, and human rights. He has held fellowships at Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, and Harvard Universities, and has taught law, ethics, and policy at Oxford, King’s College, London, and Princeton (among others). He has served as an expert on law and ethics in meetings of the WHO, the National Academies (in the U.S.), and the Royal Society in London (among others).