Plenary Sessions and Speakers
Plenary One
A Conversation with Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, DSc (hon), FASTMH, FAAP
Monday, March 23, 10:30 a.m. - Noon
Welcome and Music performed by Riyaaz Qawwali
A Conversation with Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, DSc (hon), FASTMH, FAAP
Monday, March 23, 10:30 a.m. - Noon
Welcome and Music performed by Riyaaz Qawwali
This plenary session features an in-depth public conversation between Dr. Peter Hotez, Dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, and Stuart Nelson, President & CEO of the Institute for Spirituality and Health, exploring the moral, spiritual, and civic dimensions of scientific vocation in an age of profound polarization. Drawing on Dr. Hotez’s work in vaccine development, global health, and science advocacy, the dialogue will examine the concept of “Science Tikkun,” the repair of a fractured world through scientific knowledge ordered toward compassion, justice, and the common good.
Together, the speakers will reflect on the intersections of faith and medicine, the ethical responsibilities of scientists and clinicians, and the personal costs of public leadership. Dr. Hotez will share reflections on his experiences as a national leader during the COVID-19 pandemic, including moments of moral courage, public misunderstanding, and becoming the target of organized hate. The conversation will also explore how religious traditions, spiritual practices, and communities of meaning can sustain those engaged in high-stakes scientific and medical work, particularly amid burnout, mistrust, and cultural conflict.
This session invites participants to consider how science and spirituality might together heal not only bodies, but social fabric; how truth-telling can be both rigorous and humane; and how medicine can serve as a form of public witness grounded in humility, hope, and repair.
Together, the speakers will reflect on the intersections of faith and medicine, the ethical responsibilities of scientists and clinicians, and the personal costs of public leadership. Dr. Hotez will share reflections on his experiences as a national leader during the COVID-19 pandemic, including moments of moral courage, public misunderstanding, and becoming the target of organized hate. The conversation will also explore how religious traditions, spiritual practices, and communities of meaning can sustain those engaged in high-stakes scientific and medical work, particularly amid burnout, mistrust, and cultural conflict.
This session invites participants to consider how science and spirituality might together heal not only bodies, but social fabric; how truth-telling can be both rigorous and humane; and how medicine can serve as a form of public witness grounded in humility, hope, and repair.
Prof. Peter Hotez MD, PhD, DSc (hon) FAAP, FASTMH is Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine where he is also Co-Director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, and Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine. He is also University Professor of Biology at Baylor University, Senior Fellow in Disease and Humanity at the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy. Dr. Hotez is a vaccine scientist, biochemist, and pediatrician who has led or co-led the development of vaccines for parasitic infections-hookworm, schistosomiasis, Chagas disease-currently in clinical trials, and several coronavirus vaccines, including two low-cost COVID vaccines for global health so far administered to 100 million children and adults in India and Indonesia. He is also an ardent vaccine advocate and science explainer who combats antiscience and antisemitism in America, and globally.
Stuart Nelson
Stuart Nelson is President & CEO and the inaugural Loise Henderson Wessendorff Chair at the Institute for Spirituality and Health at the Texas Medical Center, where he works to advance whole-person health by bridging religion, spirituality, clinical practice, and public health. A Houston native with a global upbringing, he holds degrees from Rice University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Mind-Body Medicine at Saybrook University. Stuart is also an American Leadership Forum Senior Fellow.
Plenary Two
"Profession, Prophesy and Healing"
Daniel P. Sulmasy, MD, PhD
Recipient of the H. Tristram Engelhardt Award for "Provocative Voice in Bioethics, Calling Us to Consider Foundations"| Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities, OSU College of Medicine
Monday, March 23, 4:20 - 5:50 p.m.
Music performed by members of the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church Choir
"Profession, Prophesy and Healing"
Daniel P. Sulmasy, MD, PhD
Recipient of the H. Tristram Engelhardt Award for "Provocative Voice in Bioethics, Calling Us to Consider Foundations"| Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities, OSU College of Medicine
Monday, March 23, 4:20 - 5:50 p.m.
Music performed by members of the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church Choir
Daniel P. Sulmasy, MD, PhD
Daniel P. Sulmasy, MD, PhD, is the André Hellegers Professor of Biomedical Ethics in the Departments of Medicine and Philosophy and Director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. A practicing internist and a philosopher, he has written extensively about medical ethics and the spirituality of medical care. His seven books include The Healer’s Calling, The Rebirth of the Clinic, A Balm for Gilead, Methods in Medical Ethics, and Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Before, During, and After the Holocaust.
Plenary Three
Prophetic Friendship, Sacred Space, and the Healing of Medicine
Imam Abdullah Antepli, President, Rothko Chapel
Rev. Laura Mayo, Senior Minister, Covenant Church Houston
Tuesday, March 24, 10:30 a.m. - Noon
Music performed by members of the Texas Medical Center Orchestra
Prophetic Friendship, Sacred Space, and the Healing of Medicine
Imam Abdullah Antepli, President, Rothko Chapel
Rev. Laura Mayo, Senior Minister, Covenant Church Houston
Tuesday, March 24, 10:30 a.m. - Noon
Music performed by members of the Texas Medical Center Orchestra
Imam Abdullah Antepli
|
Rev. Laura Mayo
|
In a time of moral injury, institutional strain, and cultural fragmentation, medicine and faith stand in need of witnesses who can speak truth with compassion, imagination, and courage. This plenary brings together Rev. Laura Mayo (Senior Minister, Covenant Church Houston; Board Member, Rothko Chapel) and Imam Abdullah Antepli (President, Rothko Chapel) in prepared reflections and an interfaith conversation on what it means to speak prophetically at the intersections of religion, health, and public life.
Drawing from Christian and Islamic traditions, and shaped by their shared leadership at the Rothko Chapel, one of the world’s most iconic spaces for contemplation, art, and justice, Rev. Mayo and Imam Antepli will explore how sacred space itself can function as a form of prophetic witness. The Chapel’s architecture, silence, light, and abstract imagery serve as a subtle frame for reflecting on how beauty, presence, and mystery hold grief, resist polarization, and invite moral imagination when words and policies fall short.
Together, they will consider how religious traditions speak prophetically not only through critique, but through creative practices - ritual, music, story, lament, hospitality, and shared silence - that rehumanize systems under duress and sustain those who serve within them. Their dialogue will engage medicine’s deepest challenges: burnout, scientific distrust, institutional collapse, and the longing for meaning in clinical work. This plenary models what the conference itself seeks to cultivate: prophetic friendship across difference, a form of witness that invites communities to dwell together in complexity, hold suffering with tenderness, and dare to imagine a more humane future for healing.
Drawing from Christian and Islamic traditions, and shaped by their shared leadership at the Rothko Chapel, one of the world’s most iconic spaces for contemplation, art, and justice, Rev. Mayo and Imam Antepli will explore how sacred space itself can function as a form of prophetic witness. The Chapel’s architecture, silence, light, and abstract imagery serve as a subtle frame for reflecting on how beauty, presence, and mystery hold grief, resist polarization, and invite moral imagination when words and policies fall short.
Together, they will consider how religious traditions speak prophetically not only through critique, but through creative practices - ritual, music, story, lament, hospitality, and shared silence - that rehumanize systems under duress and sustain those who serve within them. Their dialogue will engage medicine’s deepest challenges: burnout, scientific distrust, institutional collapse, and the longing for meaning in clinical work. This plenary models what the conference itself seeks to cultivate: prophetic friendship across difference, a form of witness that invites communities to dwell together in complexity, hold suffering with tenderness, and dare to imagine a more humane future for healing.