Ben Hurlbut is assistant professor of biology and society in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. He was a Postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard STS Program in 2009-2010. He is trained in science and technology studies with a focus on the history of the modern biomedical and life sciences. His research lies at the intersection of bioethics, political theory and science and technology studies.

Hurlbut studies the changing relationships between science, politics and law in the governance of biomedical research and innovation in the 20th and 21st centuries.  Focusing on controversy around morally and technically complex problems in areas like human embryo research, synthetic biology, and genomics, he examines the interplay of science and technology with shifting notions of democracy, of religious and moral pluralism, and of public reason.  One purpose of his research is to bring historical and qualitative social science approaches to bear on normative problems in bioethics and political theory.

Hurlbut received an A.B. in Classics from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in the History of Science from Harvard University. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the Program on Science, Technology and Society in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.