Jonathan H. Marks

Jonathan H. Marks is the director of the Bioethics Program at Penn State, and affiliate faculty in Law, Philosophy, Public Policy, and International Affairs.  Professor Marks is also a barrister and academic member of Matrix Chambers, London and Geneva, a leading group of human rights lawyers.

An expert working at the intersections of ethics, law, and policy, Professor Marks focuses on the impact of corporate funding on health policy and research—with a particular interest in public-private partnerships, and the ways in which these arrangements have exacerbated the obesity epidemic and the opioid crisis. His research also addresses access to health care of undocumented patients; the public health, ethical, and policy implications of hydraulic fracturing; the ethics of behavioral economics in health policy; professional ethics and human rights in detention and interrogation; and the ethical implications of neuroscience in national security.

Professor Marks has written for journals of law, medicine, bioethics, and public health including the New England Journal of Medicine, American Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Bioethics, and the Hastings Center Report (among others). His recent book, The Perils of Partnership: Industry Influence, Institutional Integrity, and Public Health (Oxford University Press, 2019), expands on his TED talk, “In Praise of Conflict,” which has more than a million views. He has been interviewed about the book on the Majority Report, on both NPR and Pacifica Radio affiliates, and in several podcasts.

Professor Marks was formerly the Edmond J. Safra Faculty Fellow in Ethics at Harvard University, where he remained affiliated with the ethics center throughout its six-year initiative on Institutional Corruption (2009-2015). Professor Marks has also held the Greenwall Fellowship in Bioethics and Health Policy at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities.  He obtained his M.A., B.C.L. (equivalent to J.D., LL.M.) from the University of Oxford.

Research Interests:

Corporate Influence in Public Health; Public-Private Partnerships; Institutional Ethics and Corruption; Food Ethics and Policy; Health and Human Rights.