By Mia McCauley, Student Intern
As science continues to advance, the moral questions surrounding medicine have never been more significant. This February, UW-Madison students seek to answer these questions through a two-day bioethics conference. The conference brings together students, clinicians, religious leaders, and bioethicists to examine how faith, spiritual traditions, and secular ethics shape health decisions. Through centering interfaith perspectives that are often marginalized in STEM spaces, this conference helps empower students with resources they will use in their future. Students will understand that medicine is not just about scientific knowledge, but also a deep commitment to human justice, accountability, and compassionate care.
Interfaith Bioethics: Faith, Justice and Pluralistic Futures will take place February 14 and 15 and features a combination of keynote speakers, panel discussions, and other opportunities for deeply reflective discussion. A central event highlight will be a keynote conversation with members of the family of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman from rural Virginia whose cervical cancer cells, taken without her consent in 1951, became the first immortal human cell line (HeLa cells), transforming medical research worldwide.
The conference is hosted by the Center for Interfaith Dialogue, which is part of the Office of Inclusion Education within Student Affairs.
Center for Interfaith Dialogue Program Coordinator Talia Ivry says, “The event was the brainchild of a former Interfaith Fellow, Khadijah Dhoondia, who now works as an intern for the Center. I first met Khadijah as a sophomore when she was launching her RSO, the Islamic STEM Association, focused on hosting dialogues about the intersection of Islam and STEM. Since then, I’ve watched her become a leader on campus, hosting interfaith events like a Bioethics iftar, mentoring young students, and advocating on behalf of her community. I was excited to help her realize her vision. It will be the first of its kind at UW.”
With students as the leaders of this initiative, this conference reflects the lived realities, values, and questions that many students bring with them into STEM fields.
“Once I got involved with the Center for Interfaith Dialogue’s Interfaith Fellows Program, I met other students who were just as intrigued by the intersection between religion and bioethics,” said Dhoondia. “This experience reinforced the importance of bringing the conversations we had been having with The Islamic STEM Association (iSTEM) to a broader audience. It inspired the idea of an “Interfaith Bioethics Conference,” which I then pitched to the Center for Interfaith Dialogue. Since then, we have continued working together to create a larger space for these conversations, one that can engage the wider campus community. That shared interest is what has motivated us to bring this Bioethics conference to life.”
Through this conference, students can not only envision themselves as skilled leaders but also as individuals with a deep awareness of their ethical responsibilities. From the development of a strong moral foundation, attendees are empowered to act with greater intention, making thoughtful decisions and holding themselves to higher standards of accountability.
“Part of the job of the university is to equip students with the knowledge to go forward and be successful in their career paths, academically and beyond, ” said Ivry. “This conference is a chance for the students to learn about event planning, accessibility, communications, and program coordination in addition to the academic subjects that will be discussed. I hope the conference will give current and future medical professionals a chance to reflect on what it means to treat the whole person– their beliefs, their fears, their wishes. Attendees will have more knowledge about Buddhist, Muslim, Sikh, Indigenous American, Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish, Hindu, and secular approaches to bioethics and medical decision-making, which will help them better treat these communities.”
Dr. Stolz is Kemal H. Karpat Associate Professor of History at UW-Madison. A historian of the late Ottoman Empire and modern Middle East, his research examines how new forms of technical and scientific knowledge shaped state power, economic governance, and religious life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is the author of The Lighthouse and the Observatory and is currently writing a book on Ottoman debt and global finance.