Third Annual Faith Sommerfield Memorial Lecture

Join us for a discussion on grief and the challenges of accessing end-of-life care in the United States, featuring Jennifer Senior, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author known for her writing on grief, and Dr. Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., an internationally renowned author on bioethics and the founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

The Completed Life Initiative hosts this annual lecture in partnership with Columbia University’s M.S. in Bioethics program in commemoration of Faith Sommerfield, the late founder of the Completed Life Initiative. The lecture serves as both a tribute and a platform to advance critical conversations around end-of-life care, personal autonomy, and the right to die with dignity.

Registration closes on Tuesday, September 16th. 

Speaker Bios:

Jennifer Senior

Jennifer Senior is a staff writer at The Atlantic and winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for “Twenty Years Gone,” an unflinching portrait of a family’s reckoning with loss in the 20 years since 9/11. It was published as a stand-alone book in April of 2023 under the title “On Grief: Love, Loss, Memory.”

Prior to joining The Atlantic, Jennifer spent five years at The New York Times—first as one of its three daily book critics, then as a columnist for the Opinion page. Before that, she spent eighteen years as a staff writer for New York Magazine, writing profiles and cover stories about politics, social science, and mental health. In addition to the Pulitzer, Jennifer has won a variety of journalism prizes, including two National Magazine Awards, two Front Page Awards, a GLAAD award, and the Erikson Prize in Mental Health Media.

Jennifer is also the author of All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood, which spent eight weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list, was translated into twelve languages, and was named one of Slate’s Top 10 Books of 2014. Her work has been anthologized four times in The Best American Political Writing, and her feature about the suicide of the psychologist Philip Brickman was selected for The Best American Science Writing of 2021.

Jennifer has been a frequent guest on NPR and numerous television programs, including The Chris Matthews Show, Morning Joe, Washington Journal with Brian Lamb, Anderson Cooper 360, Good Morning America, and Today. She has also been a speaker at TED’s annual conference and the Sydney Opera House.

Arthur Leonard Caplan

Dr. Arthur Caplan, PhD, is currently the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor and the founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Department of Population Health. Prior to coming to NYU Langone, Dr. Caplan created the Center for Bioethics and the Department of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, and he founded the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Caplan is the author or editor of 35 books and more than 880 papers in peer reviewed journals. He has served as the chair of a number of committees and advisory groups, including for the United Nations, the National Cancer Institute, and the Department of Health and Human Services. He is a regular commentator on bioethics and health care issues for WebMD/Medscape, WOR radio in New York City, Sirius Doctor Radio, and various other national and international media outlets.

Dr. Caplan was a USA Today 2001 “Person of the Year” and was described as one of the ten most influential people in science by Discover magazine in 2008. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the McGovern Medal of the American Medical Writers Association, the Franklin Award from the City of Philadelphia, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.

Dr. Caplan holds eight honorary degrees from colleges, universities, and medical schools.