Biography

Stephen G. Post, Ph.D. is Professor of Preventive Medicine and Director/Founder of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics at Stony Brook University. For 10 years prior to that, he was Professor in the School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, and Senior Research Scholar at the Becket Institute of St. Hugh’s College, Oxford University. He was a Hastings Center Fellow and a Senior Scholar in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University.

Post is a Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University and a Senior Scholar for the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He was made a Member of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia for "distinguished contributions to medicine”. He is an Elected Member of the International Society for Science and Religion at Cambridge University. He served as the Public Member of the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Composite Committee and was reappointed on the basis of “greatly appreciated contributions”.

Because of his focus on the dynamic of caring and on ethical issues surrounding persons with developmental cognitive disabilities and dementia, Post was elected as a member of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Panel of Alzheimer's Disease International. The Association’s National Board recognized him for “distinguished service” for his efforts in education and bringing ethical issues to Association Chapters and families.

Post is a leader in the study of altruism, compassionate health care, and love in the integrative context of scientific research, health care delivery and outcomes, philosophy, and religious thought. At the University of Chicago, where he completed his Ph.D. on the relationship between self-giving love/altruism and happiness, he was an elected University Fellow, a preceptor in the Pritzker School of Medicine, and a Junior Fellow in the Martin E. Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion.

In 2008, Post received the Hope in Healthcare Award for his "pioneering research and education in the field of unconditional love, altruism, compassion,and service" and the Kama Book Award in Medical Humanities from World Literacy Canada. He is Founder and President of The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love.

Post is the primary author of over 150 articles in peer-reviewed journals. He has written seven scholarly books on altruism, compassionate care, and love, and is the editor of nine other books.

Post is a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church, and is currently a Trustee of the John Templeton Foundation. His grandfather, Edwin Main Post, was the husband of Emily Post by his first marriage.