Ezekiel Emanuel: My father lived into his 90s. He understood something many successful men miss

Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, author of Eat Your Ice Cream: Six Simple Rules for a Long and Healthy Life, is Vice Provost for Global Initiatives, Co-Director of the Healthcare Transformation Institute, and the Diane v.S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.

A practicing oncologist and one of the world’s leading bioethicists, Dr. Emanuel earned his MD from Harvard Medical School, a PhD in political philosophy from Harvard University, and an MSc from the University of Oxford. He is the most widely cited bioethicist in history, with more than 350 publications and 15 authored or edited books.

Dr. Emanuel previously served as Special Advisor on Health Policy in the Obama administration, where he helped shape the Affordable Care Act, and was the founding chair of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Special Advisor to the Director-General of the World Health Organization, a Guggenheim Fellow, recipient of the 2026 Hastings Center Founders’ Award for contributions to bioethics, and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2026.