M.Therese Lysaught appointed Rose F. Kennedy Chair in Christian Ethics at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics
M. Therese Lysaught, PhD has been appointed the Rose F. Kennedy Chair in Christian Ethics and Research Scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, and Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University. Her scholarly work brings into conversation the fields of theology, medicine, bioethics, and global health. Her books include: Theological Bioethics (Cascade Press, 2026); A Prophet to the Peoples: Paul Farmer’s Witness and Theological Ethics (Pickwick Press, 2023, co-edited with Jennie Weiss Block and Alexandre A. Martins); Biopolitics after Neuroscience: Morality and the Economy of Virtue (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022, co-authored with Jeffrey P. Bishop and Andrew Michel, 2021 Expanded Reason Award); Catholic Bioethics and Social Justice: The Praxis of US Healthcare in a Globalized World (Liturgical Press, 2019, co-edited with Michael McCarthy, 2019 Catholic Press Association Award), Caritas in Communion: The Theological Foundations of Catholic Health Care (Catholic Health Association, 2014); On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives on Medical Ethics , 3rd edition (Eerdmans, 2012, co-edited with Joseph Kotva); and Gathered for the Journey: Moral Theology in Catholic Perspective (Eerdmans, 2007, co-edited with David Matzko McCarthy, 2008 Catholic Press Association Award). Dr. Lysaught is a founding member and Editor of the Journal of Moral Theology and a member of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life.
Dr. Lysaught is from Chicago. She studied organic chemistry, writing, and religion at Hope College, theology at the University of Notre Dame, and received her doctorate in religion from the Duke University Divinity School, with minors in Religion and Culture and the History of Medicine. At Duke, she says she “was gifted with an extraordinary community of friendship and conversation cultivated by Stanley Hauerwas.”
Early in her career she received a fellowship from the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) Program of the National Human Genome Research Institute of the NIH and spent a year in Dr. Jeff Murray’s Cooperative Human Linkage Lab at the University of Iowa, one of the major sequencing centers for the Human Genome Project. She subsequently was appointed to the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) of the National Institutes of Health, an historic public advisory committee tasked with overseeing human genetic engineering and, at that time, the emerging field of gene therapy.
That same year, she embarked on an academic career as a professor of theological ethics that has now spanned over three decades at three Catholic universities. Along the way, she was introduced to Catholic health care via her work with the Catholic Health Association. She spent a year with CHA as a Visiting Scholar, subsequently consulting with Catholic health systems across the US, Catholic universities, and a series of organizations engaged with Catholic higher ed.
Dr. Lysaught explains that she “has been sustained along the way by the good people of the Ekklesia Project,” a community of theologians, pastors, and congregations committed to fostering conversations about the Church. She “found her own theological vision challenged and transformed by encountering the people of Haiti, El Salvador, and Guatemala through research projects in global health,” and felt privileged to work with Catholi Medical Mission Board in developing ways to support their staff in Haiti, Peru, Kenya, Zambia, and South Sudan.
Dr. Lysaught is the first woman to be appointed Rose F. Kennedy Chair in Christian Ethics at the KIE. Fr. Richard McCormick, S.J. served from 1973–1986 as the inaugural chairholder for 13 years before joining the faculty at the University of Notre Dame. Fr. John P. Langan, S.J. was appointed in1986 and held the position until 2002, later transitioning to become Georgetown’s Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Professor of Catholic Social Thought. Dr. John Keown was appointed in 2003 for a 22-year tenure before retiring in the summer of 2025.
At Georgetown Dr. Lysaught will be teaching courses at the intersection of theology, ethics, and social medicine, serving as a Research Scholar at the KIE in addition to her appointments as the Rose Kennedy Chair and in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies.
Learn more at Dr. Lysaught’s website