Joel Michael Reynolds
Joel Michael Reynolds is an American philosopher whose research focuses on disability. Their areas of specialization include Philosophy of Disability, Bioethics, Continental Philosophy, and Social Epistemology. They are an associate professor of Philosophy and Disability Studies in the at Georgetown University, a Senior Research Scholar in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, and director of Georgetown's . They are jointly appointed in as Faculty in the as well as in the . In 2022, they were named a Faculty Scholar of and an Honorary Fellow of the at York University. In 2023, they were elected as a Fellow of . They are the founder and editor-in-chief of the, the first journal devoted to the field. They are also co-founder and co-editor of with Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, the first book series from Oxford University Press to focus on disability and ethics. Their work has appeared or been cited in outlets including TIME, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, National Post, Truthout, and AEON.
Reynolds is the author or co-editor of a number of books, including ', with Christine Wieseler, with Mercer Gary, ' with Erik Parens, Liz Bowen, and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, The Meaning of Disability, and Philosophy of Disability: An Introduction. They are also co-editor of a special issue of The Hastings Center Report, “”, with Erik Parens and of a special issue of Puncta, "", with .
They earned their B.A. in philosophy as well as religious studies from the Robert D. Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon and their M.A. and Ph.D. from Emory University. They have received fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Reynolds previously taught at ; They held the inaugural Rice Family Postdoctoral Fellowship in Bioethics and the Humanities at The Hastings Center from 2017 to 2020; and they held the inaugural Laney Graduate School Disability Studies Fellowship at Emory University from 2014 to 2015. At the University of Oregon, Reynolds won the George Rebec Prize for best essay by a philosophy student in 2007, 2008, and 2009. Also in 2009, they won the President's Award from the Robert D. Clark Honor's College for Distinguished Thesis.