Laura J. Bishop, Ph.D.
Academic Program Officer for Outreach, Library, and International Initiatives
Laura's first great success was to delay her own arrival to avoid being born on April Fool's Day. Happily grounded in family and community while growing up in a small town along the Susquehanna River in New York State, she always had an interest in the wider human and natural world. Cross-country trips to visit her mother's family in California and Nevada and a wonderful high school year in the tropical climate of Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia with Foo San and Betty Lee's family as an American Field Service (AFS) exchange student formed part of her exposure and enjoyment of widely-varied food, climate, belief systems, and cultures. Family hikes in the Five Lakes region near Lake Tahoe, CA were one inspiration to major in biology at Wells College. Located in Aurora, NY, Wells sits on the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake (one of the Finger Lakes) and was a research resource during Laura’s favorite course on limnology (the study of fresh water lakes and streams). Her interest in bioethics came about because two Wells professors, Laura Purdy, Ph.D. (philosophy) and Thea Mendelsohn, Ph.D. (biology) discovered an early edition of Beauchamp and Childress' Principles of Biomedical Ethics. The book led them to create an innovative elective course allowing senior bio and philosophy majors to collaborate on ethics-focused research projects. Laura graduated from Wells with a B.A. in biology and a self-designed, interdisciplinary minor in science and human values.
Laura received her Ph.D. from Georgetown in Philosophy, with a concentration in Bioethics. Her research interests include the role of the family in medical decision making, bioethics education in secondary schools, teaching ethics and curriculum development, bioethics themes in movies, and dental ethics. As the KIE Academic Program Officer for Outreach, Library, and International Initiatives, she focuses on curricular and extra-curricular initiatives for undergraduates involving the BRL and KIE; welcoming visiting researchers; and working with professional groups and organizations to identify possible collaborative opportunities for bioethics education. She is delighted to be working closely with the Undergraduate Bioethics Society at Georgetown as they prepare to host the National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference in 2013.
She continues to help high school teachers through the Institute's High School Bioethics Curriculum Project, and has served as an Ethics Consultant and speaker for the Northwest Association for Biomedical Research (NWABR)'s ongoing education project and workshops for high school teachers. Laura also was a writer for the National Institutes of Health's bioethics curriculum supplement "Exploring Bioethics." She is the coordinator for the Dental Ethics Affinity group of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH). At Georgetown she serves on the Hospital Ethics Committee and the Scholarly Communication Committee, and is a regular workshop presenter at the annual Junior Science and Humanities Symposium.
She has volunteered for 20+ years with the Arlington Food Assistance Center, is an active member of Clarendon United Methodist Church, and enjoys her two cats, while still missing her dog.