George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology & Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights Dorothy E. Roberts was named to STAT’s ’2025 STATUS List’ of leaders shaping health, medicine, and life sciences headlines.
The list features 50 influential people selected through a rigorous nomination and judging process by STAT editors and reporters across a variety of industries like business, medicine, nonprofits, philanthropy, education, and government in roles ranging from leading executives, AI scientists, and political figures, to patient advocates, activists, and leaders in academia.
Roberts, a legal scholar and public policy researcher whose work examines the resurgence of race as a biological category—especially in policies related to biomedicine and biotechnology—urges stakeholders in medicine not to rely upon race as a category for genetic difference, but instead to investigate other explanations for gaps in health and the effects of social inequality.
“I’m very grateful for this recognition of my work to end the legacy of racism in medicine, health care, and public health policy,” said Roberts. “Improving health and advancing social justice are inseparable.”
The ’2025 STATUS List,’ released in April, also includes fellow University of Pennsylvania faculty members Holly Fernandez Lynch C’03, L’06, M’06, Associate Professor of Medical Ethics and Law at the Perelman School of Medicine and Professor of Medicine Kiran Musunuru ML’19, MRA ’24.
Robert’s work encompasses reproductive health, bioethics, and child welfare. She sheds light on systemic inequities, amplifies the voices of those directly affected, and boldly calls for a wholesale transformation of existing systems.
Her major books include Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (Pantheon, 1997); Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (Basic Books, 2001); Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century (The New Press, 2011); and Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World (Basic Books, 2022), as well as more than 100 articles and essays in books and journals, including “Race” in the 1619 Project book.
Earlier this year, Roberts was named to TIME’s 2025 list of ‘The Closers,’ recognizing 25 Black leaders working to end racial equity gaps. And in October, she was named a 2024 MacArthur Fellow, receiving a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” to continue her work addressing inequality, social justice, and race issues.
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