Jennifer S. Bard to join Penn State as visiting professor at Penn State Law and the College of Medicine

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Jennifer S. Bard, an internationally recognized expert in the fields of law, public health, and bioethics, will join the faculties of Penn State Law and the Penn State College of Medicine this summer for a one-year appointment as a visiting professor of law and medicine.

Bard is a professor of law at the University of Cincinnati College of Law where she also holds an appointment as professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. She served as dean of Cincinnati Law from 2015 to 2017.

At Penn State, Bard will work with the faculties of Penn State Law and the College of Medicine to build new synergies between the two professional schools. In the spring 2018 semester, Bard will teach a course or seminar at the law school in the field of health law. She will also deliver guest lectures, workshops, and seminars at the College of Medicine.

“I am very excited that Jennifer Bard will be joining us at Penn State this coming year,” said Penn State Law Dean Hari Osofsky. “Her impressive expertise in both interdisciplinary health law issues and program development will help us enormously as we build in this area. The University has made a strategic commitment to enhancing health, and Penn State Law looks forward to collaborating in that effort.”

Bard will serve as a visiting professor on the faculty at Penn State for the 2017-2018 academic year, beginning in August.

 “A well-founded medical education goes far beyond the science of healing to also include important and interconnected topics such as the impact of health policies, social determinants of health, the changing health care landscape and patient perspectives,” said Dr. Craig Hillemeier, dean of Penn State College of Medicine, CEO of Penn State Health and Penn State’s senior vice president for health affairs. “I’m confident that Dr. Bard’s contributions will be yet another way to ensure our students become solid, systems-ready physicians, while also bringing new knowledge and perspectives to our faculty and staff.”

“I’m honored to accept the invitation to spend a year at Penn State Law and the College of Medicine as they assess how best to bring together the amazing resources of this exceptional university to build a program that will integrate research and learning about some of the most important issues we face as a society,” said Bard. “This is an exciting year for health law and it’s a pleasure to be part of the national conversation while at a law school and medical school whose students and faculties are in the forefront of policy change and innovation.  I look forward to being part of the energy, intellect, and vision that Deans Osofsky and Hillemeier are creating through their creative leadership.”

Prior to joining the University of Cincinnati, Bard was associate vice provost for academic engagement at Texas Tech University and was the Alvin R. Allison Professor of Law and director of the Health Law and J.D./M.D. program at Texas Tech University School of Law.  From 2012 to 2013, she served as associate dean for faculty research and development at Texas Tech Law.

Bard also held appointments in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences as a member of the founding faculty of the public health program and as adjunct professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Texas Tech University Health Science Center’s School of Medicine. She has been a visiting professor at Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa, and in the LL.M. program at LaTrobe University in Melbourne, Australia.

Bard has been recognized for her teaching, including being named “Outstanding First Year Teacher” at Texas Tech Law. She has taught Torts, Public Health Law, Human Subject Research Law, and Constitutional Issues in Health Law. She began her academic career as a faculty member at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

Bard is a prolific and highly successful scholar in the disciplines of law, public health and bioethics. She has published 30 articles and book chapters, including articles in the University of Utah Law Journal, The American Journal of Bioethics, and the University of Houston International Law Journal on topics ranging from the regulation of e-cigarettes, international human subject research, whistleblowing in higher education, the use of “dangerousness” as a factor in death penalty sentencing, corporate wellness programs, and posthumous reproduction. Her work is widely cited by publications in a variety of disciplines.

Bard has been asked to present scholarly papers at conferences all over the world in law, bioethics, and public health, most recently including the Athens Institute for Education and Research 11th Annual International Conference on Law, Athens, Greece and the European Law Faculties  (ELFA) Annual Conference in Istanbul, Turkey. She is frequently sought out by the media on issues of law and public health and has been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal and Money Magazine. She often publishes opinion pieces in print and is a contributing editor to the Health Law Professors Blog, PrawfsBlawg, and The Harvard Bill of Health.

She is an elected member of the American Law Institute and has served as book review editor of the Journal of Legal Medicine, a publication of the American Academy of Legal Medicine. She also was a past-chair of two American Association of Law School's sections: Law, Medicine, and Health Care and Mental Disability.

Bard holds a Ph.D. from Texas Tech University, a J.D. from Yale Law School, an M.P.H. from the University of Connecticut, and a B.A. from Wellesley College.

Following law school, Bard clerked for the late Honorable Frank H. Freedman, chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She was then a litigation associate at Shearman & Sterling in New York City where she worked on complex commercial litigation and international mergers and acquisitions. Before entering academe, she was an assistant attorney general in Connecticut in the Medicaid Fraud/Whistleblower Unit.

She is a member of the bars of New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia and before the U.S. Supreme Court, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Military Court of Appeals, Southern District of New York, Eastern District of New York, and the District of Connecticut.