Elizabeth Yuko

Dr. Elizabeth Yuko has reshaped the space where ethics meets popular culture, bringing bioethics out of academic journals and into mainstream media conversations. Her widely cited commentary on NBC’s ‘The Good Place’ in The Atlantic, noting that the series ‘stands out for dramatizing actual ethics classes onscreen, without watering down the concepts being described,’ helped frame how critics understood the show’s philosophical ambitions. That ability to translate complex moral questions for broad audiences defines her career.

Her academic foundations are extensive: she earned a Ph.D. in bioethics from Dublin City University in 2012, along with an LL.M. in migration law (2009) and an M.A. in international security and conflict studies (2007) from the same institution. She has published on bioethics regulations in Ireland and Europe, consent and residual biological materials, research ethics, and the ethics of mental health therapies, serving as an external ethics expert for the European Research Council and on the Advisory Board of the Global Bioethics Initiative.

As an award-winning journalist and adjunct professor of ethics at Fordham University, her bylines span Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Teen Vogue, Architectural Digest, and Vulture, among many others. She previously served as Health & Sex Editor for SheKnows Media, gave a TEDx talk on bioethics and The Golden Girls, and has appeared on the Travel Channel’s ‘Mysteries at the Museum’ and ‘Beyond the Unknown,’ lecturing on public health, feminism, sexual assault, and popular culture.