Asha L. Bhandary, PhD
Professor and Vice Chair of Care Ethics Research, Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate
Care and Bioethics and Family, Population and Preventive Medicine
Professor, Department of Philosophy
(631) 444-3512
Expertise
- Philosophy of Care
- Feminist Ethics
- Social and Political Philosophy
- Reproductive Justice
Profile
Asha Leena Bhandary, PhD is Professor and Vice Chair of Care Ethics Research in the Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine and the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics. She also holds a joint appointment at Stony Brook University as Professor in the Department of Philosophy.
Dr. Bhandary is an internationally recognized philosopher whose scholarship bridges philosophy, ethics, and public engagement. Her research focuses on care ethics, political philosophy, feminist ethics, and value theory, with particular attention to the ways caregiving arrangements shape autonomy, justice, and social institutions. Her work has made important contributions to contemporary care theory and to understanding how societies can better support caregiving while promoting individual freedom and equity. She furthers this mission as Founder and Director of the Care Lab, which reflects a shared commitment between the Departments of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine and Philosophy to advancing interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersection of ethics, health, and society.
She earned her BA in Comparative Literature with Honors in the Program in Ethics in
Society and her MA in Philosophy from Stanford University, followed by a PhD in Philosophy
from the University of Connecticut. She is the author of Freedom to Care: Liberalism, Dependency Care, and Culture (Routledge, 2020), which has inspired multiple scholarly symposia examining her
theory of liberal dependency care. She also co-edited Caring for Liberalism: Dependency and Liberal Political Theory (Routledge, 2021). Her newest book, Being at Home: Living Autonomously in an Unjust World, was published by Oxford University Press in 2026.
Beyond her scholarship, Dr. Bhandary is widely recognized for her leadership within
the profession. She currently serves as Chair of the American Philosophical Association's
Committee on Asian & Asian American Philosophers & Philosophies and is a member of
the APA Committee on Inclusiveness in the Profession. She previously served as Chair
of the Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory and was selected as a Distinguished
Visiting Speaker for the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute on
care theory.