Michele Mekel

Michele Mekel

Michele Mekel

Associate Teaching Professor of Bioethics and Humanities
Associate Director, Bioethics Program
Affiliate Law Faculty
Joint Appointment, Penn State College of Medicine Humanities Department
005 Thomas Building

Education

B.A., University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism, 1992
J.D., University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, 2002
MHA, University of Missouri-Columbia, School of Medicine, Health Management and Informatics, 2003
MBA, University of Missouri-Columbia, College of Business, 2003

Biography

Michele L. Mekel is the associate director of the intercollege Bioethics Program at Penn State. She is also a teaching professor of bioethics, an affiliate faculty member of Penn State Law and the Rock Ethics Institute, and she has a joint appointment in the Department of Humanities at Penn State College of Medicine.

Working at the nexus of health care, law, policy, ethics, and education, professor Mekel has served as: a law professor, an undergraduate instructor in Southeast Asia, the executive administrator of academic-based bioethics programs, a health law and policy programming organizer, a health plan compliance and planning officer, a hospital association manager, a law clerk to the Missouri Supreme Court, and a Fulbright scholar. In addition, she has experience as a journal editor and as the head of external affairs, communications, alumni relations, and events for a law school.

Professor Mekel has written an array of academic journal articles and book chapters and has presented at numerous conferences, symposia, and trainings. She is also the co-principal investigator of the Penn State Viral Imaginations: COVID-19 project. Her creative writing has been featured in numerous publications, including having her poetry selected and read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac.

Professor Mekel attended the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she earned a bachelor of journalism (magna cum laude), masters of business administration and health care administration, and a Juris Doctor (order of the coif and editor-in-chief of the Missouri Law Review).

Photo of Michele Mekel