James Sabin is Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Ethics Program, and co-founder of the Center for Ethics and Population Health, a program for research, teaching and policy development at Harvard Medical School, and Director of Teaching for the Harvard Medical School Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention. As Director of the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Ethics Program, Dr. Sabin is responsible for a nationally recognized, highly innovative organizational ethics program. Dr. Sabin's major research interests are in the clinical and theoretical aspects of fair resource allocation, the role of consumers in overseeing health policy and practice, organizational ethics, and the social and ethical dimensions of bringing antiretroviral treatment for AIDS to India.

Dr. Sabin has written more than 150 articles and chapters on organizational ethics, resource allocation, and clinical practice. Setting Limits Fairly, written with Norman Daniels, was published by Oxford University Press in 2002. A second edition of Setting Limits Fairly, written with Norman Daniels, was published by Oxford University Press 2008.  No Margin, No Mission: Health Care Organizations and the Quest for Ethical Excellence, written with Steven Pearson and Ezekiel Emanuel, was published by Oxford University Press in 2003. In 1999 his article "Last Chance Therapies and Managed Care: Pluralism, Fair Procedures, and Legitimacy" received the American College of Healthcare Executives Dean Conley award for the year's best article on healthcare management. His work on consumer participation was recognized in 2002 by the American Association of Community Psychiatrists Moffic Award for Ethical Practice in Public Sector Managed Behavioral Healthcare.

Dr. Sabin has provided psychiatric care to patients at Harvard Community Health Plan/Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates since 1975. In 2012 he was appointed to the American Medical Association Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, and in 2013 he was made a fellow of the Hastings Center.

Professor Sabin was a Senior Scholar in Ethics in 1999-2000, and became a Faculty Associate of the Ethics Center at the end of that year.