Scott Burris, JD, professor at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law and Director of the Center for Public Health Law Research, was awarded the prestigious Jay Healey Health Law Teachers Award today. The award was presented during a lunchtime ceremony at the American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2018 Health Law Professors Conference at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

The Jay Healey Health Law Teachers Award recognizes a teacher of health law who embodies the passion and drive of its namesake Jay Healey, a teacher at the University of Connecticut Schools of Law and Medicine who died in 1993 of pancreatic cancer.

Since joining the Temple faculty in 1991, Burris has encouraged and supported the growth of the fields of public health law and public health law research by mentoring and educating the next generation of leaders, and by conducting research of his own.

Burris is a founding director of the Center for Public Health Law Research, which has pioneered the field of legal epidemiology — the scientific study of law as a factor in the cause, distribution and prevention of disease and injury in a population. He is also a founder of Legal Science, LLC, a private company dedicated to the social mission of improving access to legal information and the supporting the practice of policy surveillance.

“I admire Scott's commitment and willingness to tackle some of public health law's biggest challenges,” said CPHLR co-director Heidi Grunwald, PhD. “From early AIDS discrimination law to today's drug policies and laws effecting sustained housing segregation, Scott's passion to improve all lives is easy to see and feel when you work as part of his team.”

Burris is the author of more than 200 books, book chapters, articles and reports on issues including urban health; discrimination against people with HIV and other disabilities; HIV policy; research ethics; and the health effects of criminal law and drug policy. His newest book, “The New Public Health Law,” written with Micah Berman, Matthew Penn and Tara Ramanathan Holiday, is now available for pre-order and will be released on August 1, 2018.

Read a full biography for Scott Burris at law.temple.edu.

Read more about the Jay Healey Award at ASLME.