Michael J. Deem is Associate Professor in the Department of Human Genetics (School of Public Health) and Core Faculty in the Center for Bioethics & Health Law. His research focuses on bioethics, philosophy of biology, philosophy of medicine, and public health ethics.
Dr. Deem began teaching in the Center’s MA in Bioethics program in 2018 as an adjunct faculty while he was full-time faculty at Duquesne University’s School of Nursing and Center for Global Health Ethics. He was recruited to the University of Pittsburgh as Associate Professor with tenure in 2021. He continues to teach in the MA Bioethics program and serve as a mentor and advisor to students of the program. Dr. Deem teaches several courses in healthcare and public health ethics within the School of Public Health, where he also serves as Associate Director of the Undergraduate Certificate in Bioethics.
Dr. Deem has engaged in several areas of curriculum development at Pitt, including designing new undergraduate courses in public health ethics and the philosophy of population health, serving as primary author and originator of a Graduate Certificate in Bioethics for the Center, and playing an advisory role in the development of the School of Public Health’s recently launched Undergraduate Certificate in Bioethics.
Since 2021, Dr. Deem has served as Director of Pitt’s Consortium Ethics Program, which provides continuing ethics education to healthcare professionals across western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, eastern Ohio, and northern Maryland.
Dr. Deem also collaborates on research and teaching with colleagues and students in the School of Nursing, the School of Medicine, the Honors College, and the Department of English. He co-edited (with School of Nursing and Center faculty member Jennifer Lingler) Nursing Ethics: Normative Foundations, Advanced Concepts, and Emerging Issues, Oxford University Press (2024). He is currently co-editing The Oxford Handbook of Genetic Counseling (with Emily Farrow and Human Genetics and Center-affiliated faculty member Robin Grubs). Dr. Deem and Dr. Grubs’ monograph, Genetic Counseling Ethics: A Critical Introduction, is under contract with Oxford University Press. He is currently collaborating on an NHGRI R25 project with colleagues at Duquesne University and the University of Pittsburgh on Genomic Competencies for Nurses from Theory to Application: An Online Long Course. He is a Faculty Fellow of the Center for Philosophy of Science, a Faculty Fellow of the Beatrice Institute, a Member of the Board of Directors of Modern Fertility Care, and subject faculty in the Children’s Mercy Pediatric Ethics Certificate Program.
He has published in a wide range of clinical, philosophy, and public health journals, including American Journal of Bioethics, American Journal of Health Promotion, Analysis, Pediatrics, JAMA Pediatrics, Biology and Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Nursing Outlook, and International Journal of Public Health. Dr. Deem’s monograph Conceptual Issues in Genomic Medicine, is under contract with Cambridge University Press. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he became a frequent press and podcast commentator on vaccine hesitancy and nonmedical exemptions from vaccine mandates and gave several invited talks across the country on these issues.
Dr. Deem completed his BA in philosophy and theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, his MA in historical theology at Saint Louis University, his MA in philosophy from Texas A&M University, and his PhD in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He then completed the Pediatric Ethics and Genomics Fellowship at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri.
