Welcome! I am an assistant professor at the Institute for Bioethics & Health Humanities at University of Texas Medical Branch. Previously, I was a clinical ethics fellow at the Alden March Bioethics Institute at Albany Medical College.
I completed my PhD in Philosophy at The Ohio State University in 2022, and my MA in Philosophy at Texas Tech University in 2016.
My research focuses on well-being (especially issues relating to desires), medical decision making, and health policies for vulnerable populations.
My CV is here. My email address is xiayu@utmb.edu.
Research
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Yu, Xiang, Ryan H. Nelson, and Olivia Schuman. Forthcoming. "Grief and Decision-Making Capacity." Journal of Medicine and Philosophy.
Kim, Daniel T., and Xiang Yu. 2026. “A Life Worth Sustaining? Bestowed Worth and Pediatric Care.” Hastings Center Report 56 (2): 30–42. https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.70015.
Yu, Xiang. 2025. “Well-Being, Depression, and Desire.” The Journal of Value Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-025-10054-9.
Yu, Xiang. 2022. “Hidden Desires: A Unified Strategy for Defending the Desire-Satisfaction Theory.” Utilitas 34 (4): 445–60. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820822000309.
Editor-Reviewed Publications
Carpenter, Hannah, Victoria H. McNamara, Xiang Yu, Lisa Campo-Engelstein, and Elise Smith. Forthcoming. "Feminist Considerations in Research Recruitment for Pregnant Persons in Justice-Involved Contexts." Case Report. The American Journal of Bioethics.
Yu, Xiang, and Daniel T. Kim. 2025. “Impermissibility of Euthanasia and Self-Regarding Duties to Stay Alive.” Commentary. Journal of Medical Ethics 51 (4): 243–44. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme-2024-110567.
Under Review
A paper on the ethics of elective labor deliveries.
A paper on why only autonomous desires are relevant to well-being.
A paper on surrogate decision making for incarcerated patients.
Works in Progress
A paper on why aging is undesirable and problems with life extension technologies (with Ginika Oguagha)
A paper on decision making capacity of adolescent patients (with Evelyn Lamb)
A paper on naming conventions of family medicine departments (with Valeria Galan and Kendall Campbell)
Teaching
As Instructor
Ethics of Health Technologies (Spring 2026)
Clinical Ethics (Spring 2025, Summer 2026)
Health Care and Society I, II, and III (Preceptor for Fall 2023, Spring 2024)
Fundamentals of Clinical Ethics (Fall 2023)
Biomedical Ethics (Fall 2022)
Introduction to Ethics (Fall 2021, Spring 2022)
Introduction to Philosophy (Summer 2021)
Engineering Ethics (Fall 2020)
Introduction to Logic (Online) (Spring 2021, Spring 2020)
As Teaching Assistant
Probability and Decision Making (Spring 2019)
Death and the Meaning of Life (Fall 2018)
Philosophy of Religion (Spring 2018)
Symbolic Logic (Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2017)
Asian Philosophies (Spring 2017)
Social and Political Philosophy (Fall 2016)
Introduction to Philosophy (Spring 2016)
Introduction to Ethics (Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2015)