Professor of the Graduate School
UC Berkeley School of Public Health
David Malcolm Potts is a human reproductive scientist and Professor at the School of Public Health. He was the founding director of the Bixby Center for Population, Health, and Sustainability at the School.
David Malcolm Potts is a human reproductive scientist and Professor of Public Health at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He was the first holder of the Fred H. Bixby-endowed chair in Population and Family Planning and founding director of the Bixby Center for Population, Health, and Sustainability at the School of Public Health. Potts completed a medical degree and a PhD in embryology at the University of Cambridge.
He has published ten books and over 350 scientific papers and articles. His books include Abortion (co-written with Peter Diggory and John Peel, 1977), Textbook of Contraceptive Practice (1st edition co-written with John Peel, 1969; 2nd edition co-written with Peter Diggory, 1983; long the key textbook in the field), Queen Victoria’s Gene (written with his brother Prof. William Potts), Ever since Adam and Eve: The Evolution of Human Sexuality (written with Dr Roger Short, 1999) and Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World (co-written with Thomas Hayden, 2008).
- PhD – Anatomy, Cambridge University, 1965
- MB, BChir (MD) – University College Hospital Medical School, 1962
- MA – Natural Sciences, Cambridge University, 1960
- BA – Cambridge University, 1959
- Mobilization of resources for international family planning
- Reducing nonevidence-based barriers preventing access to contraception and safe abortion
- Reducing maternal deaths, especially through the use of misoprostol to control postpartum hemorrhage
- Evolution of human sexual behavior
- Biological origins of human warfare
- AIDS prevention strategies, resources, and role of male circumcision
- PB HLTH 116: Seminar on Social, Political and Ethical Issues/Health and Medical Apprenticeship Program
- PB HLTH 181: Population and Poverty (co-taught Prata and Campbell)