Paul A. Lombardo, PhD, JD
Faculty Scholars Program Committee

Paul A. Lombardo, PhD, JD

  • Regents Professor Emeritus
  • Bobby Lee Cook Professor of Law Emeritus
  • Georgia State University

Paul A. Lombardo is known for his historical scholarship on the legal legacy of eugenics in the United States. He wrote Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court and Buck v. Bell (2008, 2022) and edited A Century of Eugenics in America: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era (2011). Prof. Lombardo received his AB from Rockhurst College, his MA from Loyola University of Chicago and both his PhD and JD from the University of Virginia. He practiced law in California (1985-1990) and was a faculty member at the University of Virginia Schools of Law and Medicine (1990-2006).

Prof. Lombardo coedited Introduction to Clinical Ethics (1995, 1997) and Fletcher’s Clinical Ethics (2005). From 2011 to 2016, he served as a Senior Advisor to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a Fellow of the Hastings Center, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and has been a consultant for eight different institutes of the National Institutes of Health. The American Society of Law, Medicine, & Ethics chose him as the Jay Healey Health Law Professor of the Year in 2021. The Sindh Institute of Medical Sciences in Karachi, Pakistan, where he taught regularly over two decades, named him as Distinguished Professor of Bioethics and Law in 2023.

For more information, visit: https://law.gsu.edu/profile/paul-lombardo/

Committee Member Q & A

We asked each Committee Member four questions to gain insight into who they are and what they value in bioethics scholarship and the Faculty Scholars Program.

What professional activity or accomplishment are you most proud of?

My publications revealed the fraudulent foundations of the infamous Supreme Court case that endorsed eugenical sterilization [Buck v. Bell, 1927]. I advocated for legislative denunciations of past eugenics laws and compensation for victims of those laws in several states.

In your work, how have you engaged with people who face bioethics dilemmas in their professional activities or personal lives?

I have advised patients, health care providers, hospitals, universities, law firms, and industry on bioethical questions.

Who has been affected by your work in bioethics?

I am most proud of the students and scholars I have trained and mentored, particularly those who have identified my publications as their inspiration for career choices.

What do you view as the greatest strength of the Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program?

The program has assembled a collaborative and supportive cohort of interdisciplinary scholars spanning multiple generations.