Bio
Dr. Laura Roberts serves as Chairman and the Katharine Dexter McCormick and Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine as well as serves in a number of leadership roles at Stanford University and in the Stanford Medicine enterprise. She is a physician-scientist in academic medicine and an internationally recognized scholar in bioethics, psychiatry, medicine, and medical education. Dr. Roberts' early work elevated the perspectives of key stakeholders in psychiatric research, engaging with individuals with lived experience of mental and physical disorders, investigators, community members, and policymakers. Over two decades, Dr. Roberts has received scientific, peer-reviewed funding from the National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy, as well as private foundations to perform empirical studies of modern ethical issues in research, clinical care, and health policy, with a particular focus on vulnerable and special populations.
Dr. Roberts has written hundreds of peer-reviewed articles and other scholarly works, and she has written or edited many books in the areas of professionalism and ethics in medicine, professional development for physicians, and major texts in clinical psychiatry. Dr. Roberts is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Academic Medicine and has served as Editor-in-Chief, Books for the American Psychiatric Association since 2016. Dr. Roberts also served as the Editor-in-Chief for the journal Academic Psychiatry from 2002-2019 and she also serves as an editorial board member and peer reviewer for many scientific and education journals.
Having received her Bachelor of Arts in History and Master of Arts in the Conceptual Foundations of Science from the University of Chicago, she completed her medical degree and a fellowship in clinical medical ethics at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. Dr. Roberts completed her residency training in psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, where she also received additional clinical preparation in child and adolescent psychiatry. Dr. Roberts served on the faculty of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine for nine years, performing evidence-based ethics research, administration, education, and clinical work in the specialized area of consultation-liaison psychiatry. While serving as Professor and Vice Chairman for her Department, Dr. Roberts established the University of New Mexico Institute for Ethics and was appointed the Jack and Donna Rust Professor of Biomedical Ethics prior to her departure in 2003. She then moved to the Medical College of Wisconsin, where for seven years she served as chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and the Charles E. Kubly Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine.
