Stephen Post

An opinion leader and public speaker, Stephen G. Post, Ph.D. (University of Chicago, 1983) has served on the Board of the John Templeton Foundation (2008-2014), which focuses on virtue, spirituality and public life, and is a lifelong Member. Post is a leader in research on the benefits of compassionate care in relation to improved patient outcomes and caregiver well-being. He addressed the U.S. Congress on volunteerism and health, receiving the Congressional Certificate of Special Recognition for Outstanding Achievement. Post was co-recipient (2012) with Edmund D. Pellegrino MD of the Pioneer Medal for Outstanding Leadership in HealthCare from the National HealthCare Chaplaincy Network, and he received the Kama Book Award in Medical Humanities from World Literacy Canada (2008). He is a co-recipient of the 2019 National Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society Professionalism Award for developing the Professional Identity Formation curriculum of the Renaissance School of Medicine of Stony Brook University, where he is professor of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine, Division Head of Medicine in Society, and Founding Director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care & Bioethics. At the University of Chicago, Post was a preceptor in the Pritzker School of Medicine, in the University Core Humanities Program, and in the Nuveen Institute for Advanced Study. He then moved on to serve as full professor in the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine (1988-2008), where he directed educational programs, and to Stony Brook (2008-present). 

An elected member of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, of the New York Academy of Medicine, and of the Royal Society of Medicine London, Post is the author of more than 400 articles in journals such as Science, The American Journal of Psychiatry, New England Journal of Medicine, Psychosomatic Medicine, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, The Journal of Religion, Journal of the American Medical Association, Alzheimer’s & Dementia, Hypatia (The Journal of Feminist Philosophy), and Nature. He served as Editor-in-Chief for the five-volume Encyclopedia of Bioethics (Macmillan Reference, 3^rd edition), the definitive reference work for the field of bioethics and medical humanities selected for the Dartmouth Medal by the American Library Association.  In 1995 Post was elected to join the Hastings Center fellows, a group of more than 200 individuals of outstanding accomplishment whose work has informed scholarship and public understanding of complex ethical issues in health, health care, science, and technology. H-index 46.

Post’s book The Moral Challenge of Alzheimer’s Disease (Johns Hopkins University Press) was designated a “medical classic of the 20^th century” by the British Medical Journal (2009), whose editors wrote, “Until this pioneering work was published in 1995 the ethical aspects of one of the most important illnesses of our aging populations were a neglected topic.” Post is recipient of the Alzheimer’s Association national distinguished service award “in recognition of personal and professional outreach to the Alzheimer’s Association Chapters on ethics issues important to people with Alzheimer’s and their families.” Post’s most recent book is Dignity for Deeply Forgetful People: How Caregivers Can Meet the Challenges of Alzheimer’s Disease (Johns Hopkins University Press, May 2022). His work on caregiver ethics and spirituality has been supported by grants from the NIH National Institute on Aging and the National Institute on Mental Health, as well as the Human Genome Institute. His writing and advocacy are recognized as the baseline for national ethics guidelines in dementia care in the United States, Canada and Japan, among others.

With his mentor the philanthropist Sir John Templeton (d. 2008) Post founded The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love: Spirituality, Compassion & Service in 2001 (www.unlimitedloveinstitute.org), so named by Sir John himself. The Institute was established in Cleveland’s University Circle with a team of twelve “research area consultants” all of whom went on to great renown (including Greg Fricchione, MD, now Director of the Benson-Henry Mind-Body Institute at Harvard and Mass General; and Matt Lee PhD, now Director of Empirical Research for the Human Flourishing Project at Harvard and Baylor.) In 2001 the Institute released its first competitive “request for proposals.” It has supported 80 major research projects at various universities, as well as many global conferences. The 2004 Works of Love Conference attracted 800 scientists, spiritual thinkers, and love practitioners from more than 40 nations. In 2016 the Institute was invited by the UN to organize and co-sponsor the Annual Youth Day conference on this theme, filling the headquarters with young people from across the world who presented award-winning reflective essays on how they convinced recalcitrant peers to love those who do not share their own religious beliefs. This was in response to a worldwide essay contest from the Institute after its website was singled out to be brought down by ISIS Team DZ in 2014. Richard T. Watson, a member of the original Institute Board, endowed the Watson Chair in Science and Religion at Harvard Divinity School.   

Post is the best-selling author (2008) of Why Good Things Happen to Good People: How to Live a Longer, Happier, Healthier Life by the Simple Act of Giving (Random House Broadway). He has been quoted in more than 4000 newspapers and magazines, and featured on numerous television shows including The Daily Show. He was described generously by Penn’s Martin E.P. Seligman in Flourish as one of “the stars of positive psychology.” 

Post holds his PhD from the University of Chicago in world religions, comparative ethics, and psychology of religion (1978-83). While there he was one of eight doctoral students designated a university fellow (1982-83) and a in Fellow of the Nuveen Institute for Advanced Study. He attended Reed College and St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire. In 2003 Post was elected a Founding Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR), based at Cambridge University. Founded in 2002, ISSR is the world’s preeminent learned society devoted to this intersection.  

Post has been married for 43 years to Mitsuko Sugawara and they have two adult children, Emma and Andrew.