Wendy E. Parmet

Associate Dean Parmet, a leading expert on health, disability and public health law, directs the law school’s JD/MPH program with Tufts University School of Medicine. In the spring of 2003, she was named a Matthews Distinguished University Professor, an award that recognizes and furthers the scholarly and creative activities of prominent Northeastern University faculty. She is also an editor of the law school’s SSRN online publication, Human Rights and the Global Economy.

Professor Parmet teaches Public Health Law, Health Law, Bioethics, Disability Law, Constitutional Law and Torts, and has published articles on public health, bioethics, discrimination, health law and AIDS law. She is coauthor of the book, Ethical Health Care (Prentice Hall, 2005). Her latest book, Populations, Public Health, and the Law, was published by Georgetown University Press in 2009.

Formerly an associate with the Boston firm of Hill & Barlow, Professor Parmet clerked with Chief Judge Levin H. Campbell of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. She is president of the board of directors of Health Law Advocates, secretary of the Public Health Law Association and a member of the ABA’s AIDS Coordinating Committee. She previously served on the editorial board of the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics and the ABA’s Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law.

In 1998, Professor Parmet acted as co-counsel in Bragdon v. Abbott, the first AIDS/HIV case to come before the US Supreme Court under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Professor Parmet’s client, Sidney Abbott, had been refused treatment by her dentist when she revealed her HIV-positive status, although she was asymptomatic. The high court said that because she was infected with HIV, she was entitled to the protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act.