Hi Everyone! My name is Mike Sobol, and I am a rising senior from Buffalo, NY. I am pursuing dual degrees here at Pitt–a BPhil in Politics & Philosophy and a BS in Neuroscience–as well as minors in Chemistry and Economics. On campus, I’m a teaching assistant for Biochemistry and Honors Organic Chemistry, a leader in AMSA and Science Olympiad, and an Honors College Ambassador and Community Leader. I’m also involved in auditory neuroscience research at UPMC Children’s Hospital and residency curriculum development in the UPMC Department of Neurological Surgery. In my free time, I enjoy running, reading, and studying some niche interests in agriculture law and policy. This summer, I’ll also be returning to the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Sciences (at Carnegie Mellon University) as a Biology Teaching Assistant and Residential Counselor for the second year. In this role, I have the privilege of supporting 75 talented high school seniors from across Pennsylvania in lecture, laboratory, and elective courses as well as team research projects.
Broadly, my BPhil project seeks to synthesize context-dependent clinical bioethics applications (with a special focus on pediatric bioethics) into a widely applicable philosophy of the right to life and the right to die, responsive to accelerating scientific and technological advancements in medicine. My research mentor is Dr. Michael Deem, Associate Professor in the Department of Human Genetics and Core Faculty in the Center for Bioethics and Health Law. In the Spring 2023 semester, I used the Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship (CURF) to support the first intensive phase of my BPhil thesis research–generating a detailed, scientifically sound, and philosophically inclusive review of the current, and substantially contradictory, bioethical perspectives on neonatal euthanasia as the first case study in my research.
Now, through the Brackenridge Fellowship, I intend to use this model case study to investigate other ‘life and death’ clinical ethics fields, including non-neonatal pediatric euthanasia, adult euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and palliative care. I will consider how the various levels of autonomy, consent, physician responsibility, and beneficence in each context inform the philosophical treatment of the clinical practice. By comparative analysis of these clinical contexts, juxtaposed both with the neonatal euthanasia case study and with each other, I hope to elucidate the overarching ethical posture toward ‘life and death’ interventions accepted by modern healthcare providers. Importantly, I will not only address forms of euthanasia and other life-ending interventions but also consider increasingly available approaches designed to sustain life, including organ transplantation–which I hope to examine through the unique lens of the University of Pittsburgh’s own Dr. Thomas E. Starzl Papers. In addition to making progress on my BPhil project, I hope to submit a subset of this work for presentation at the Catholic Medical Association’s Educational Conference this fall.
Immediately following my graduation from Pitt and before pursuing professional school education, I will enter the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) Teaching Fellows program. Through ACE, I will spend two years earning an M.Ed. while serving as a teacher in underserved Catholic schools–hopefully in the high school STEM classroom. I am fortunate to have been granted early admission to this program, and I will be spending part of my senior year in professional, personal, and spiritual formation to prepare for the classroom setting while also sharing the ACE program’s mission with fellow undergraduate students throughout Pittsburgh! The Brackenridge Fellowship’s focus on interdisciplinary research approaches and clear, colloquial communication of research findings will be quite useful as I prepare to form rigorous, yet approachable, learning experiences for my future students. I look forward to connecting with this summer’s other Brackenridge Fellowship recipients, improving each other’s research through meaningful interdisciplinary interactions.
