More Info on the featured speaker: Dr. Jason Scott Robert is the Franca Oreffice Dean's Distinguished Professor in the Life Sciences, and the Lincoln Associate Professor of Ethics in Biotechnology and Medicine, in SOLS. He conducts research and teaching at the intersection of bioethics and the philosophy of science. He has published extensively on ethical, conceptual, and methodological issues in developmental biology and evolution, and his current work focuses primarily on translational research in neuroscience.
He is funded by the National Science Foundation and the James S. McDonnell Foundation to explore how neuroscientists do (and how they should) attempt to justify their research with non-human animals in the pursuit of findings relevant to humans. He is also interested in population and public health ethics, and in the social determinants of health. Dr. Robert directs the Bioethics, Policy, and Law Program (BPL) in the Center for Biology and Society at ASU, administering the Biology MS and PhD concentrations in BPL, as well as the Biomedical and Health Ethics track of the new MA in Applied Ethics and the Professions.
Dr. Robert is also Director of the Medicine and Society theme at The University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University, responsible for teaching and mentoring in the domains of bioethics and medical humanities, and he serves as Director of Education for the Scholarly Project at the medical school. Dr Robert is Associate Editor for public health ethics of the Canadian Journal of Public Health, a co-editor for Philosophy of Biology of the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, and a member of the editorial board of Biological Theory. He has served as program co-chair for the American Society for Bioethics + Humanities, and is active on several committees for the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology