Michael A. Santoro, J.D., Ph.D.
Michael A. Santoro is a Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. His teaching, research, and public work focus on business ethics, corporate governance, professional responsibility, and the human rights implications of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence.
Santoro’s recent scholarship examines how AI and data-driven systems shape equity, accountability, and institutional decision-making, particularly in health care and other high-stakes domains. His work has contributed to the identification and mitigation of racial disparities in medical appointment scheduling and other algorithmically mediated processes, combining ethical analysis with operational and policy design.
His research has appeared in leading academic journals, including Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, and has received international recognition, including the M&SOM Best Paper Award. He collaborates regularly with scholars across management, operations, law, and public health, as well as with nonprofit and public-interest organizations.
Santoro is a founding Co-Editor of the Business and Human Rights Journal (Cambridge University Press) and a Co-Founder and founding President of the Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association. He serves on the editorial boards of Business Ethics Quarterly and the Journal of Human Rights and has testified before the U.S. Senate and participated in United Nations–affiliated forums on business, technology, and human rights.
He is the author or editor of five books, including Wall Street Values: Business Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis (Cambridge University Press), China 2020 (Cornell University Press), Ethics and the Pharmaceutical Industry (Cambridge University Press), and Profits and Principles: Global Capitalism and Human Rights in China (Cornell University Press).
Santoro holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University, a J.D. from New York University, and an A.B. from Oberlin College, and was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Hong Kong.
He who exercises power by means of his virtue may be compared to the north star, which keeps its place while all the other stars revolve around it. – Confucius
