Skip to main content

Joseph
Ali
,
JD

Associate Professor
Joseph Ali

Departmental Affiliations

Primary
Division
Health Systems

Joseph Ali, JD, studies how to conduct global public health research and practice that maximally respects ethical values in an increasingly interconnected digital world.

Contact Info

1809 Ashland Avenue, Deering Hall 208
Baltimore
Maryland
21205
US        

Research Interests

Bioethics; Research Ethics; Global Health Ethics; Digital Health; Capacity Strengthening; Consent; Health Policy & Systems Research; Disease Surveillance
Experiences & Accomplishments
Education
JD
University of Pittsburgh
2006
BA
University of Toronto
2003
Overview
My research and teaching engages a range of challenges in domestic and global health ethics. This includes empirical and normative work in U.S. and international research ethics, and projects that address the implications of emerging global mobile and digital technologies as applied in the context of health research, public health programs, and disease surveillance. I am particularly interested in how values are expressed, represented, prioritized, preserved and influenced in the context of digital technologies.

As core faculty and associate director for global programs at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, I work with colleagues at JHU and other institutions internationally to advance the development of multidisciplinary research, training and service partnerships in bioethics. I am committed in my work to collaboratively supporting the capacity of scholars from resource constrained countries and settings to lead bioethics research, teaching and practice on issues of local importance. I have been involved in establishing and operating NIH Fogarty-funded non-degree, master's, doctoral and post-doctoral programs in bioethics at Johns Hopkins and with partners in Uganda, Ethiopia, Zambia, Botswana and Malaysia. I also co-lead the Wellcome-funded Oxford University-Johns Hopkins University Global Infectious Disease Ethics (GLIDE) Collaborative which supports research and training between the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute and the Oxford Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities to address emerging issues involving ethics and infectious disease.
Honors & Awards
Excellence in Teaching, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health - 2019, 2020
Named one of ‘10 People to Watch Under 30,’ B Magazine, Baltimore - 2011
Staff Recognition Award – Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2009
The Teplitz Memorial Award, University of Pittsburgh School of Law - 2006
Excellence for the Future Award, The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) - 2006
Select Publications
Selected publications
  • Johns Hopkins Project on Ethics and Governance of Digital Contact Tracing Technologies. Digital Contact Tracing for Pandemic Response: Ethics and Governance Guidance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020., doi:10.1353/book.75831.
  • Limaye RJ, Sauer M, Ali J, Bernstein J, Wahl B, Barnhill A, Labrique A. Building trust while influencing online COVID-19 content in the social media world. The Lancet Digital Health. 2020 Jun 1;2(6):e277-8.
  • Ali J, DiStefano MJ, Coates McCall I, Gibson DG, Al Kibria GM, Pariyo GW, Labrique AB, Hyder AA. “Ethics of mobile phone surveys to monitor non-communicable disease risk factors in low-and middle-income countries: A global stakeholder survey” Global Public Health 2019 Jan 11:1-5.
  • Ali J, Andrews J, Somkin C, Rabinovich CE. “Harms, Benefits, and the Nature of Interventions in Pragmatic Clinical Trials” Clinical Trials, first published online on September 15, 2015 doi:10.1177/1740774515597686.
  • Ali J, Kass N, Sewankambo N, White T, Hyder A. “Evaluating International Research Ethics Capacity Development: An Empirical Approach” Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, 2014; 9(2), 41-51.
Projects
Bloomberg Data for Health - Non-Communicable Diseases (D4H-NCD) Surveillance Project
Johns Hopkins Project on Ethics and Governance of Digital Contact Tracing Technologies