Centering Ethics, Spirituality, and Meaning-Making

Lori DiPrete Brown, MTS '88, Distinguished Teaching Faculty, UW-Madison School of Human Ecology (Madison, WI)

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Describe the work you do today:

I teach and lead community engagement programs related to global health and human ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My courses focus on community health and well-being, child rights, leadership in health and social services, and sustainable development. I love teaching and being as useful as I can as an advisor and mentor. I consider my students to be my teachers also, and sometimes they mentor me! I am also a writer who has experience with a lot of different forms - academic articles, a Global Health textbook, a novel based on my Peace Corps service, creative non-fiction, literary translation, and, more recently, visual essays and comics!

How has your HDS degree influenced your career journey?

My HDS degree, combined with an MS from the School of Medicine and Public Health, allowed me to center ethics, spirituality and meaning making in all that I do as a teacher in higher education, and a practitioner in global public health. It also provided me with a foundation for my writing, both, the ability to identify and explore ideas, but also to be close and present as an observer and scribe.

What career advice would you offer to current HDS students?

Something slightly wild and aspirational made you want to study at HDS so that you could understand your own faith, the faith of others, and explore how it shapes our world. Keep that light alive as you make your early career choices and come back to it from time to time.