Lawrence O. Gostin, J.D., LL.D (Hon.) is the John Carroll Research Professor at Georgetown University Law Center; Professor of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University; and Director of the Center for Law & the Public’s Health at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities (CDC Collaborating Center "Promoting Public Health Through Law"). He is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford University. Professor Gostin is an elected lifetime Member of the Institute of Medicine and serves on the IOM Board on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Professor Gostin also consults for the World Health Organization and UNAIDS. Professor Gostin has lead major law reform initiatives for the U.S. government including the Model Emergency Health Powers Act (MEHPA) to combat bioterrorism and other emerging health threats. Professor Gostin received the Rosemary Delbridge Memori "who has most influenced Parliament and government to act for the welfare of society." He also received the Key to Tohoko University (Japan) for distinguished contributions to human rights in mental health.

Professor Gostin’s latest books are The AIDS Pandemic: Complacency, Injustice, and Unfulfilled Expectations (University of North Carolina Press, 2004); The Human Rights of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities: Different but Equal (Oxford University Press, 2003); Public Health Law and Ethics: A Reader (University of California Press and Milbank Memorial Fund, 2002); Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint (University of California Press and Milbank Memorial Fund, 2000).