Grace Yia-Hei Kao (born 1974) is an ethicist who specializes in human rights and animal welfare, ecofeminism, reproductive ethics, and Asian American Christianity. Kao earned her Bachelor of Arts (philosophy & religious studies) and Masters of Arts degrees (philosophy) from Stanford University. She also earned her PhD in the Study of Religion at Harvard University. [1] She is a Professor of Ethics at Claremont School of Theology and was the first Asian American woman to receive tenure there. [2] [1] She has been appointed the inaugural Bishop Roy I. Sano and Kathleen A. Thomas-Sano Endowed Chair in Pacific and Asian Theology. [3] Kao was also the co-founding director of the Center for Sexuality, Gender, and Religion (CSGR). [4]
Kao's most recent book is My Body, Their Baby: A Progressive Christian Vision for Surrogacy, which was published in 2023 by Stanford University Press; this book won a 2024 Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Title and the silver medal in theology for the 2024 Illumination Book Awards. [5] Kao is also the author of Grounding Human Rights in a Pluralist World, published in 2011, [6] [7] and co-editor, with Ilsup Ahn, of Asian American Christian Ethics: Voices, Methods, Issues, published in 2015 and of Encountering the Sacred, Feminist Reflections on Women's Lives, published in 2018 with Rebecca Todd Peters. [8] [9] [10] She received the faculty teaching award at Claremont School of Theology in 2011 and 2017. [1]