Berkman, John R.T.

John Berkman was born in Ottawa to a family of physicians, the youngest of three children. His father was a cardiologist and founder of Ottawa’s Heart Institute, and his mother was a gynaecologist. After completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto (where his teachers included Joseph Boyle, John Finnis, Oliver O’Donovan, Ian Hacking, Northrop Frye, and Ronald Beiner), he did his doctoral studies at Duke University under the direction of Stanley Hauerwas, graduating in 1994. He taught in the United States (Connecticut, Washington, DC, and Berkeley, CA) for 16 years – teaching almost exclusively at the graduate level - before returning to Canada in 2009. He has published widely in the field of moral theology / Christian ethics, and has taught Healthcare Ethics throughout his career. He has lectured throughout the United States, in much of Europe, and in Southern Africa. In 2017 he was a Visiting Research Scholar at Christ Church College and at Blackfriars, Oxford. He is married to a palliative care physician and is the father of three children.