Biography

Stephen Post, Ph.D.

Stephen G. Post is Director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics in the School of Medicine, Stony Brook University (SUNY). From 1998 through 2008 he was Professor of Bioethics & Family Medicine in the School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Post served as a Senior Research Scholar in the Becket Institute at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford University. He is also President of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love (IRUL) - Altruism, Compassion, Service, which was founded in 2001 with a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation. He has published over 130 articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Science, The International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, The Journal of Religion, The American Journal of Psychiatry, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Lancet. He has written seven scholarly books on love, and is also the editor of eight other books, including The Fountain of Youth: Cultural, Scientific & Ethical Perspectives on a Biomedical Goal and Altruism and Health: An Empirical Approach, both published by Oxford University Press. He is also editor-in-chief of the definitive, five-volume Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Dr. Post received the Distinguished Service Award from the National Board of the Alzheimer’s Association. His most recent book is Why Good Things Happen to Good People: The Exciting New Science That Proves the Link Between Doing Good and Living a Longer, Happier, Healthier Life, co-authored with Jill Neimark. He has chaired nine national conferences in his field. He lives in Stony Brook with his wife, Mitsuko, and their two children, Emma and Andrew. They worship regularly in the Episcopal Church.

Through the IRUL, he has funded more than fifty studies at major American universities on phenomena such as altruism and compassion. His own research and writing was initially in the area of agape love and then in general bioethics, but more than a decade ago, he developed a specialty in ethical issues surrounding developmental cognitive disabilities and dementia in the context of an aging society. He has been a senior research fellow at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. Dr. Post is a fellow of College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Hastings Center. His work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and various private foundations, including the Ford Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation, which provided the initial funding for the IRUL. An elected member of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of Alzheimer's Disease International, he serves on the National Ethics Advisory Board for the Alzheimer's Association and was recognized for “distinguished service” for his educational efforts by its national board.