Mark Yarborough, Ph.D.

Mark Yarborough, Ph.D.
Dean's Professor of Bioethics
Program of Bioethics
Email: mayarborough@ucdavis.edu
(916) 734-7158

Professor Yarborough received his Ph.D. in philosophy, with a special concentration in bioethics, from the University of Tennessee. He has been on the faculties of Auburn University, the University of Colorado Denver, and the University of California, Davis. While at Denver, he was Chair of the Philosophy Department and later the Director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the university’s health sciences campus. As Center Director, he oversaw the development of various curricula, launched an arts and humanities in health care program, co-founded a pediatrics clinical bioethics program, and championed various community outreach activities.

Dr. Yarborough joined the faculty of the University of California Davis Bioethics Program in April 2010 as Dean’s Professor of Bioethics. His primary area of scholarship and research is ethical issues in biomedical research, with a special focus on matters related to trustworthiness in the biomedical research enterprise. He directs the ethics-related teaching and consulting activities of the University’s Clinical and Translation Science Center.

Dr. Yarborough’s scholarly publications, which have appeared in both bioethics and medical journals, address ethical issues in many areas of health care, such as how to build public trust in biomedical research, artificial feeding at the end of life, genetic counseling, human subjects research, insurance underwriting, and the role of profit in medicine. He has lectured on bioethics to numerous professional and public organizations and groups, served on several IRBs and ethics committees, and been a member of various public and private advisory committees.