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Institute for Bioethics logo
Mary Crossley

Mary Crossley, JD

Core Faculty

Professional Statement

Widely recognized for her scholarship in disability and health law, Professor Crossley has written extensively on issues of inequality in healthcare financing and delivery, and has published articles in numerous law journals, including the Columbia Law Review, Iowa Law Review, and Notre Dame Law Review. She is also the author of Embodied Injustice: Race, Disability, and Health (Cambridge University Press 2022). She teaches courses on Health Law, Health Justice, and Torts. In fall 2025, in partnership with Pitt’s School of Medicine and Street Medicine at Pitt, she created a first-of-its-kind course (Street Medicine Practicum: Homelessness Law & Policy) that gave law students an opportunity to participate as part of a Street Medicine team in Pittsburgh.

Professor Crossley was appointed Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 2005 and served in this role until 2012. She again served as Interim Dean from July 2023 to January 2025. Crossley focused her leadership on initiatives relating to curricular reform, innovative programming, and promoting diversity. In 2013, she was selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Public Health Law Scholar in Residence, and from 2014 to 2015, she served as a Faculty Mentor for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Future of Public Health Law Education Faculty Fellowship Program. In 2023, she received the American Society of Law, Medicine, and Ethics Jay Healey Teaching Award.

Appointments

  • John E. Murray Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law School of Law
  • Core Faculty Institute for Bioethics

Education and Training

  • BA, University of Virginia, 1984
  • JD, Vanderbilt University, 1987

Professional Interests in Bioethics

Representative Publications

  1. Books

  2. Mary Crossley, Embodied Injustice: Race, Disability and Health (Cambridge Univ. Press 2022).

  3. Law journal articles

  4. Mary Crossley, “Intertwined Inequities in the Long-Term Care Economy,” __ Boston College Law Review __ (forthcoming 2026).

  5. Mary Crossley, “The Layered Harms of Nursing Home Segregation,” 18 St. Louis U. J. Health L. & Pol’y 275 (2025).

  6. Mary Crossley, “Disability’s Role in Health Law,” 50 Am. J. L. & Med. 298 (2024).

Awards and Honors

  • American Society for Law, Medicine & Ethics Jay Healey Teaching Award (2023).