Benjamin Hurlbut is an expert in bioethics, biomedicine, and the history and policies of science. His research focuses on the changing relationships between science, politics and law of biomedical research in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Hurlbut is a professor in the School of Life Sciences and studies scientific controversies while societal values shift in democracy, religion and public reason, such as topics including stem cell research and genomics.

Additionally, he is the author of Experiments in Democracy: Human Embryo Research and the Politics of Bioethics, which was published in 2017.