Michelle Mello Stanford

Michelle Mello, PhD, JD

  • Professor, Health Policy
  • Professor, Law
(650) 725-3894 (voice)

Biography

Michelle Mello is Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and Professor of Health Policy in the Department of Health Policy at Stanford University School of Medicine.  She conducts empirical research into issues at the intersection of law, ethics, and health policy.  She is the author of more than 230 articles on medical liability, public health law, the public health response to COVID-19, pharmaceuticals and vaccines, biomedical research ethics and governance, health information privacy, and other topics.
 
The recipient of a number of awards for her research, Dr. Mello was elected to the National Academy of Medicine at the age of 40.  From 2000 to 2014, she was a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, where she directed the School’s Program in Law and Public Health.
 
Dr. Mello teaches courses in torts, public health law, and health policy.  She holds a J.D. from the Yale Law School, a Ph.D. in Health Policy and Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an M.Phil. from Oxford University, where she was a Marshall Scholar, and a B.A. from Stanford University. 

publications

Reports
January 2023

Wastewater-based Disease Surveillance for Public Health Action

Author(s)
Wastewater-based Disease Surveillance for Public Health Action
Journal Articles
May 2022

Assessment of Perioperative Outcomes Among Surgeons Who Operated the Night Before

Author(s)
Assessment of Perioperative Outcomes Among Surgeons Who Operated the Night Before
Commentary
March 2022

Vaccine Misinformation and the First Amendment—The Price of Free Speech

Author(s)
Vaccine Misinformation and the First Amendment—The Price of Free Speech

In The News

Medical Mystery-Getty
Commentary

I Worried the COVID Vaccine Gave My Husband a Stroke. It Took a Year to Find the Truth

In this commentary in the San Francisco Chronicle, Stanford Health Policy's Michelle Mello — professor of health policy and professor of law — shares her personal account of the year-long struggle to diagnose her husband's autoimmune disease.
I Worried the COVID Vaccine Gave My Husband a Stroke. It Took a Year to Find the Truth
Michelle Mello and Neel Guha
Commentary

ChatGPT and Physicians’ Malpractice Risk

In this JAMA Forum perspective, SHP's Michelle Mello, professor of health policy and of law, and Neel Guha, a Stanford Law School student and PhD candidate in computer science, write that medical advice from AI chatbots is not yet highly accurate, so physicians should only use these systems to supplement more traditional forms of medical guidance.
ChatGPT and Physicians’ Malpractice Risk
Elderly Woman with Cane
News

Examining Opportunities to Increase Savings From Medicare Price Negotiations

SHP's Marissa Reitsma and Michelle Mello conduct an original investigation that finds allowing the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to negotiate prescription drug prices for Medicare may improve drug affordability.
Examining Opportunities to Increase Savings From Medicare Price Negotiations
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