Interfaith Bioethics: Faith, Justice, and Pluralistic Futures

Aasim Padela, MD, MSc, FACEP

Professor and Vice Chair for Research and Scholarship; Director of RAPID-EM Fellowship Program at Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW); Founder & Director of Initiative on Islam and Medicine (II&M)

Dr. Padela is an emergency medicine physician and an academic scholar with research foci at the intersection of bioethics, public health, and religion. Overall, his scholarship aims to advance health equity and societal well-being through multidisciplinary inquiry and multilevel intervention. Accordingly, Dr. Padela’s expertise spans a variety of research methodologies and topics, including community-engaged, patient-centered, and human-centered research design, behavior change theory, religiously tailored and faith-based messaging, survey and qualitative research, discourse analysis, character education, clinical ethics, and Islamic theology.

He is Vice Chair for Research and Scholarship in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). At MCW he also serves as a Learning Community Navigator in the newly launched MCWFusion medical education curriculum. Outside of the academy, he provides public health and bioethics consultation to international organizations, legislative bodies, and in court. His work has been featured in major news outlets, including the New York Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, Newsweek, and CNN.

He is editor/co-editor of four books: Medicine and Shariah: A Dialogue in Islamic Bioethics (UND Press 2021), Islam and Biomedicine (Springer 2022), Organ Donation in Islam: The Interplay of Jurisprudence, Ethics and Society (Lexington Books 2022) and Islam, Muslims, and COVID-19: The Intersection of Ethics, Health, and Social Life in the Diaspora (Brill 2024).

Reverend Silas Hasselbrook

Pastor Hasselbrook is a Lutheran pastor and PhD candidate in Health Care Ethics at Marquette University, currently serving as Interim Director of the Concordia Center for Bioethics. His work integrates scholarly inquiry with pastoral experience, including end-of-life care.

Kristal Hudson, MD

Dr. Hudson is a hematology/oncology and palliative care physician whose practice is shaped by both her Diné (Navajo) identity and her training in Western medicine, allowing her to provide holistic, family-centered care for patients facing serious illness.

Gretchen Schwarze, MD, MPP, FACS

Dr. Schwarze is the Morgridge Professor of Vascular Surgery at UW–Madison and a practicing surgeon and researcher whose work focuses on high-stakes decision-making and end-of-life care for older adults with complex illnesses. She also directs the hospital ethics committee and the ethics curriculum at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

Jeri Lacks-Whye

Henrietta Lacks’s granddaughter and the daughter of Henrietta middle child David “Sonny” Lacks. She works at the Judiciary System of Baltimore in the Domestic Violence Unit. Jeri has visited dozens of campuses and communities around the country, sharing her perspective on the legacy of Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells. She continues to keep her grandmother’s legacy alive while using her family’s story as a platform to address national issues including preventative healthcare, health disparities, literacy, and community trust. Jeri is one of three family members on the National Institutes of Health panel that oversees HeLa genome research applications. She was also among the family members who consulted on the HBO film adaptation of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, produced by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball. Jeri continues to curate The Lacks Family Collection with artifacts from her grandmother’s life and legacy.

Shirley Lacks

Henrietta Lacks’s daughter-in-law and Deborah’s childhood best friend. Since retiring from the banking industry, Shirley has dedicated much of her time to traveling around the country, keeping Henrietta’s legacy alive as a promise to her sister-in-law, Deborah Lacks. Henrietta’s enormous contribution to science has afforded Shirley the opportunity to be a voice for patient rights. Shirley is a board member of the Henrietta Lacks Legacy Group which promotes and preserve the history of Turner Station, Maryland and the legacy of Henrietta Lacks who resided in Turner Station. Shirley will continue to walk the path in telling Henrietta’s story and the family’s journey while promoting social justice and health equity.

Alexandre A. Martins, PhD

Dr. Martins, associate professor at Marquette University, is a theologian and bioethicist whose work centers on liberation ethics, global health, and Catholic social teaching. He is the author of multiple books and President of the Brazilian Society of Moral Theology.

Annie Friedrich, PhD

Dr. Friedrich is a pediatric clinical ethicist and Assistant Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities at the Medical College of Wisconsin. She researches how technological environments shape parental decision-making in the ICU and serves as a certified clinical ethics consultant and ethics educator at Children’s Wisconsin.

Abigail S. Cutler, MD, MPH

Dr. Cutler is an OBGYN and subspecialist in Complex Family Planning at UW–Madison, caring for patients experiencing early pregnancy complications and providing abortion care. She studies reproductive health decision-making, the effects of abortion policy, and medical education.

Mohan S. Dhariwal, DO, PhD, FACP, FRSM

Dr. Dhariwal is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin with nearly three decades of experience in clinical care and medical education. He is board certified in internal medicine and brings an interdisciplinary background in protein chemistry and the biomedical sciences with a strong commitment to teaching, service, community health, and global health initiatives.

Carly Sobol, MD, MHPE

Dr. Sobol is a fourth-year integrated vascular surgery resident at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with research interests at the intersection of bioethics, humanism, and surgical decision-making. She is currently engaged in dedicated research time with a focus on medical education and communication with patients and families.

Khadijah Dhoondia, Class of 2026

Khadijah is a senior majoring in Biology and Global Health. She is the founder and president of the Islamic STEM Association and an intern for the Center for Interfaith Dialogue. Khadijah is the lead student organizer for the conference.

Talia Ivry, Dialogue Program Coordinator

Talia’s work supports Student Affairs units, including the Center for Interfaith Dialogue. A Madison native, she earned her BA from Pomona College in 2021. Currently, Talia runs the Interfaith Fellows program and supports campus-wide interfaith and dialogue initiatives. Talia is the lead staff organizer for the conference.

Reverend Michael Burch, The Crossing

Rev. Burch, Executive Director of The Crossing, brings decades of ministry, academic, and nonprofit experience along with a deep commitment to interfaith collaboration and public theology. He holds graduate degrees from UC Berkeley and Brown University and has led congregations and community organizing efforts across the country.

Daniel Stolz, PhD

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.