Her Story
About Laurie
Laurie Zoloth is a professor of religion, religious theory, Jewish thought, and bioethics who works in academic medicine at the University of Chicago. She serves as a professor in the Divinity School, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate students, and in the medical school, where she participates in clinical ethics consultations and case reviews. Her background includes prior work as a nurse in neonatal intensive care at a time when advancing technology created ethical dilemmas around treatment decisions. She pursued a doctorate in religion and literature at the Graduate Theological Union and UC Berkeley, studying philosophy and bioethics one class at a time while raising five children. Zoloth helped form the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and the Jewish Society for Jewish Ethics to mentor others and sustain the field. She attributes her path to supportive family, colleagues, and teachers including David Hartman, Baruch Brody, and Tristan Ungehart, as well as her colleague Susan Rubin with whom she began clinical ethics work. Her teaching centers on questions of what it means to be human, what it means to be free, and what must be done about the suffering of others, informed by her identity as an Orthodox Jewish woman and values of equality, open opportunity, and truth-telling.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Laurie
01What do you attribute your success to?
I had an incredibly supportive family. My parents worked very hard. My mother had a job and worked very hard at her job as a teacher and then a psychologist and taught me that a woman is responsible for her own destiny. My father told me that the life of the mind was of primary importance. I had colleagues that kept asking me interesting questions and great teachers like Baruch Brody and Tristan Ungehart. I've been very lucky to have a business partner, my colleague Susan Rubin, with whom I started doing clinical ethics.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
To do bioethics, you need a thoughtful background in theology or philosophy or law and you need to know something about science. You need to have some practice both in the clinical field and in the field of asking questions and philosophy and theology, raising questions, surfacing good arguments, figuring out how to make an argument and justifying your positions through thoughtful reflection on the texts and traditions of moral philosophy. I created a career while I had children, one class at a time, and with dedication and perseverance going back to school is possible.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
We've made the field grow by creating organizations like the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and the Jewish Society for Jewish Ethics. It's really important to have structural forms that mentor people and pass on wisdom and will endure beyond individual careers. If there's not an organization, can you make one? Can you create one? Step up for leadership in volunteer organizations and take responsibility for growing them.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I count myself as an Orthodox woman and the values that emerge from the study of Torah and Talmud and the ongoing practices of Jewish life are very important to me. I'm also a fan of the Enlightenment and the values of classic liberalism like equality, open opportunity, transparency of thought process. The discipline of philosophy encourages absolute truth-telling. My teaching is all about three things: what does it mean to be human, what does it mean to be free, and what must I do about the suffering of others.
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