Carter Snead is the Charles E. Rice Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame, where he is also a Concurrent Professor of Political Science. He is one of the world's leading experts on public bioethics—the governance of science, medicine, and biotechnology in the name of ethical goods. From 2012 to 2024, he served as Director of Notre Dame's de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. He is the author of What It Means to be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Harvard University Press 2020), which was named one of the "Ten Best Books of 2020" by the Wall Street Journal, was listed in the New York Times as one of "Ten Books to Understand the Abortion Debate in the U.S.," and won the 2021 Expanded Reason Award.

Professor Snead routinely serves as an expert witness before federal and state courts, and regularly provides expert testimony before the U.S. Senate, House, and various state legislatures.

Prior to joining the faculty of Notre Dame Law School, Professor Snead served as General Counsel to the President's Council on Bioethics (under Chairman Leon R. Kass), led the negotiations for the U.S. Delegation to UNESCO for the Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights (adopted in 2005), served as the U.S. Permanent Observer to the Council of Europe's Steering Committee on Bioethics, and was an appointed member of UNESCO's International Bioethics Committee.

Professor Snead is an elected Fellow of the Hastings Center, an appointed member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, and a fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (DC). He clerked for Paul J. Kelly, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

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