Roberto Sirvent, JD, PhD

Roberto Sirvent, JD, PhD, is a political theorist who studies race, law, and social movements. He also works at the intersection of ethics, philosophy of religion, and science and technology studies (STS). Roberto's research considers how Marxist, psychoanalytic, and anarchist frameworks can inform debates in bioethics, public health, and environmental justice. Central to his scholarly interests are the ways that colonialism, imperialism, and US militarism fuel various health injustices and ecological crises around the globe. Roberto is especially interested in helping bioethics professionals find creative ways to engage the theoretical work of disability justice advocates, queer and trans liberation movements, Black Studies scholars, mutual aid networks, and anti-colonial revolutionary struggles.

Roberto’s primary research examines the prevalence of medical neglect, abuse, and torture in prisons and immigrant detention centers. He is also working on various projects around AI, particularly its connection to the exploitation and surveillance of workers, as well as its use in education, policing, immigration enforcement, war, and other military applications. 

Roberto’s most recent scholarship includes a study that draws on theories of libidinal economy and the psychopolitics of race to address recent controversies in sports and bioethics. His current book-length project, which stems from his earlier research on critical sports studies and critical pedagogy, offers a comparative investigation into the sporting world’s “culture of risk” and the pedagogical practice of “teaching by humiliation” to show how the expectation to “play through pain” is normalized for both students and athletes. Roberto’s work in clinical ethics explores how the invention of the religious-secular distinction informs the ways religion is excluded and managed in mainstream bioethics spaces. 

Roberto is co-author of the book, American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People's History of Fake News―From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror.He is also author of Embracing Vulnerability: Human and Divine. His co-edited collections include Spirituality and Abolition, Decolonial Christianities: Latinx and Latin American Perspectives, Kierkegaard and Political Theology, and Theologies of Failure.  In addition, Roberto has co-edited special issues of the Journal of Sport and Social Issues and the Journal of Disability and the Global South. He has published on topics ranging from Latin American philosophy and critical pedagogy to sexual ethics and the cultural politics of sports.

Roberto received an MA from Johns Hopkins University, a JD from the University of Maryland School of Law, and a PhD from the London School of Theology (UK). Before joining Harvard Medical School, Roberto taught ethics, American Studies, and Latinx studies at Yale, where he also served as an Affiliate Scholar at the school's Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics and Founding Director of the Race, Bioethics, and Public Health Project. In addition to Yale, he has taught at Barnard College, Pomona College, Scripps College, and Hope International University (HIU). At HIU, Roberto served as Professor of Political and Social Ethics, Chair of the Social Sciences Department, and Director of the Center for Public Leadership.