Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor Dorothy Roberts has been named the 2025 recipient of the Bioethics Founders’ Award by The Hastings Center for Bioethics.
Roberts is the founding director of the Penn Program on Race, Science, and Society and maintains appointments at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and the School of Arts and Sciences. She was presented with the award on Oct. 23 at the annual conference of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities in Portland, Ore.
“This [award] … is a capstone of my career in bioethics and social justice,” Roberts said in an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian. “I’m retiring in June 2027, so it’s very gratifying to have this recognition at the end of my academic career.”
The ASBH extended the award to Roberts in recognition of her contributions to bioethics and the impact of her research on life sciences, medicine, and policymaking.
“This particular award is very meaningful to me, because The Hastings Center is one of the premier bioethics centers in the United States … that has always been on the cutting edge of pushing the boundaries of bioethics,” Roberts added. “Receiving the award represents how far bioethics has come in recognizing the essential importance of social justice and equality.”
The 2025 Bioethics Founders’ Award was also presented to John Harris, a professor emeritus at the University of Manchester. Harris is also the founding director of the International Association of Bioethics, a network that allows bioethicists from around the world to share their knowledge and resources with each other. The Hastings Center unanimously recommended Roberts and Harris as the recipients of the award.
Roberts recalled how the ceremony’s audience consisted of “so many younger bioethicists … who [she encouraged] along the way.” She described hearing their applause as a “gratifying honor.”
Since 2011, Roberts has served as a fellow at The Hastings Center, where she has “learned a lot” from other fellows and discussed “very important issues,” including eugenics and genetic technologies.
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Roberts also serves as the inaugural Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights. Her research focuses on a variety of public policy issues, such as social justice, reproductive health, child welfare, and bioethics.
Her most recent book, titled “Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—And How Abolition Can Build a Safer World,” explored systemic racial biases within the child welfare system. Roberts also called for the abolition of the current welfare system which, she argued, has punished Black families.
When discussing her work on “Torn Apart,” Roberts told the DP that she intends to “continue to engage with activist organizations whose mission is to abolish family policing.”
In February, TIME magazine recognized Roberts as one of 25 Black leaders working to end the racial equity gap. In October 2024, Roberts was also named a 2024 MacArthur Fellow, winning the “Genius Grant.” The honor is bestowed to individuals who demonstrate outstanding creativity in their field and whose research promises to yield significant advances with the help of the fellowship.
That year, Roberts also received the Martin Luther King Jr. Social Justice Award, a recognition issued as part of Penn’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Symposium on social change.
Roberts is set to publish a memoir titled “The Mixed Marriage Project” next year. The book will tell the story of her childhood as part of an interracial family in Chicago during the 1960s.
Roberts highlighted that the memoir asks a set of questions that “ties together all of my work over my career,” including how “we love each other as equal human beings in a deeply racist society.”
