Dov Fox

Dov Fox is the Herzog Research Professor of Law at the University of San Diego and the Founding Director of USD's Center for Health Law Policy & Bioethics. A Guggenheim Fellow and member of the American Law Institute, Professor Fox specializes in constitutional history, criminal justice, family law, health law, and torts. His books include "The Conscience of Care: Navigating Health in the Culture Wars" (Harvard University Press, 2025) and "Birth Rights and Wrongs: How Medicine and Technology are Remaking Reproduction and the Law" (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Professor Fox is the author of more than 100 scholarly articles in leading journals of law (e.g., Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal), science (e.g., Nature, Science), medicine (e.g., New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association), and public health (e.g., Foreign Affairs, American Journal of Public Health). His research is frequently discussed in popular magazines (e.g., Newsweek, Economist) and radio outlets (e.g., CNN, NPR). Fox also publishes opinion essays (e.g., New York Times, Wall Street Journal) and provides on-air analysis (e.g., Today Show, Good Morning America). 

Professor Fox served as a law clerk to the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He has also worked at the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; the consulting firm of McKinsey & Company; and the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Fox has served on advisory boards of the American Constitution Society, Appellate Defenders, the Law and Society Association, and the Association of American Law Schools. At the University of San Diego, he has chaired faculty appointments and Dean search committees.

Professor Fox has been recognized as professor of the year for both outstanding scholarship (2021, 2025) and teaching excellence (2017, 2022). In 2023-2024, he was also named University Professor, the highest academic honor bestowed on faculty in any field. He was awarded a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Grant in 2024, elected to the American Law Institute in 2025, and selected for a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2026.

His work with local communities has earned him recognition as a "San Diego Changemaker" and "Urgent Challenges Innovator." Professor Fox's audiobook "Donor 9623” was named Audible's #1 podcast of 2020 and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in investigative journalism. The show's second season (Audible, 2023) examines social and legal developments after the fall of Roe v. Wade. His latest documentary series explores end-of-life conflicts amid the opioid crisis and crackdown. His audiobooks have been featured in interviews with The Atlantic and Armchair Expert.

Professor Fox was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Oxford University, where he earned his doctorate in political theory and served as a lecturer in politics and philosophy. He received a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans to attend Yale Law School, where he was projects editor of the Yale Law Journal and all three years awarded the prize for best paper in law and science.