Michelle M. Mello, Ph.D., J.D.

Michelle Mello, J.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Law and Public Health in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). She is Director of HSPH's Program in Law and Public Health and Co-Chair of the School's Human Subjects Committee.

Dr. Mello's research focuses on empirical investigations of issues at the intersection of law, ethics, and health policy. She is the author of more than 70 articles and book chapters on the medical malpractice system, medical errors and patient safety, research ethics, mass tort litigation, the obesity epidemic, pharmaceuticals, clinical ethics, and other topics. She has led a series of studies of the effects of the medical liability environment on the quality and availability of health services, and is currently studying legal and ethical issues confronting the pharmaceutical industry as a Greenwall Faculty Scholar. In 2006, she was the recipient of the Alice S. Hersh New Investigator Award from AcademyHealth.

Dr. Mello has served as a policy advisor to state governments on medical liability reform issues and her work has been influential in legal reform efforts at the state and federal levels. She teaches courses in public health law and public health ethics at HSPH and Harvard Law School.

Dr. Mello received her J.D. from the Yale Law School, a Ph.D. in Health Policy and Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an M.Phil. from Oxford University, where she was a Marshall Scholar, and a B.A. from Stanford University.