Speaker details
Keynote speakers
Celeste Condit (University of Georgia)
Anne Fausto-Sterling (Brown University)
Ann Lingard (novelist and science communicator)
Margaret Lock (McGill University)
Short biographical details for those presenting papers are listed below in alphabetical order.
Dr Shenaz Ahmed is a Lecturer in Public Health at the Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, University of Leeds. Her research focuses on the psychosocial aspects antenatal screening. She is especially interested in the ethical implications of antenatal screening programmes, therefore much of her research explores concepts such as informed consent, informed choice, and autonomous decision-making from the users’ perspective. Most of her research is cross-cultural, mainly with mutli-ethnic populations in the UK, and in collaboration with health professionals from a range of disciplines to ensure grounding in current policy and practice.
Peter Arnott is Playwright-in-residence at the Genomics Forum. He has been working professionally as a playwright since 1985 when The Boxer Benny Lynch and White Rose opened in the same week in Glasgow Arts Centre and the Traverse, Edinburgh respectively, and he was a recipient of a prestigious Creative Scotland Award in 2007. He was Writer in Residence for the John Murray Archive at the National Library of Scotland from 2008 to 2011.
Gabrielle Bertier studied International Relations, Sustainable Development and Risk Management at Sciences-po Paris, and Genetics at the University Pierre et Marie Curie. She has worked at the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the National University of Singapore, under the supervision of Prof Alastair V. Campbell, and in the Inserm Team lead by Dr Anne Cambon-Thomsen on epidemiology, public health and genomics. Since 2010 she has been scientific project manager at the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, in the International Cooperation and Scientific Affairs office lead by Dr Michela Bertero.
Arndt Bialobrzeski has a Masters in Education in Protestant Theology and Political Sciences from the University of Giessen (Germany) and a Masters in Sacred Theology from Boston University (USA). He has also studied at the University of Frankfurt am Main (Germany), the Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology Frankfurt (Germany) and Harvard University (USA). He was a fellow at the Institute for Economic and Social Ethics at the University of Marburg (Germany), and since 2010 has been engaged in ethics research in the tri-national PRIVATE Gen Project about privacy governance in biobanks based at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany).
Lise Bitsch is a PhD candidate at the University of Twente and researcher at the Centre for Society and Genomics. Her primary research interest is the developmental dynamics of emerging technosciences. She holds a MSc. in Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society from the University of Twente, the Netherlands and a BSc in Medical Biotechnology from Aalborg University, Denmark.
Dr Felicity Boardman completed her PhD in 2010 in the Department of Sociology (University of Warwick) focusing on the social aspects of genetic and prenatal testing, with particular emphasis on the experiences of families living with a particular inheritable condition, Spinal Muscular Atrophy. She then took up a post in Warwick Medical School as a research fellow, specialising in mixed methods research. As of November 2011, she was awarded a Mildred Blaxter Post Doctoral Fellowship to return to, and publish from her PhD research and her paper proposal focuses on the results of this doctoral research.
Eline Bunnik has studied philosophy, literature and medicine, and has completed a research master in philosophy (cum laude) at the University of Amsterdam. She is currently working as a PhD student at the Department of Medical Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine of Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. her research project maps ethical issues surrounding genetic testing for complex diseases and focuses especially on the role of informed consent in direct-to-consumer personal genome testing.
Dr Jane Calvert is a social scientist at the ESRC Innogen Centre, University of Edinburgh. Her broad area of research is the sociology of the life sciences, with a particular focus on systems and synthetic biology. She is particularly interested in the role of social scientists in emerging technoscientific fields, attempts to make biology into an engineering discipline, intellectual property and open source, and design and aesthetics in synthetic biology.
Professor Angus Clarke studied Medical and Natural Sciences (Genetics). After registration, he worked in general medicine and then paediatrics. He studied the clinical and molecular genetics of ectodermal dysplasia in Cardiff and then worked in clinical genetics and paediatric neurology in Newcastle upon Tyne. He returned to Cardiff in 1989 as Senior Lecturer in Clinical Genetics and is now Professor in Clinical Genetics. He has interests in Rett syndrome and ectodermal dysplasia, the social as well as the clinical aspects. He established and directs the Cardiff MSc course in Genetic Counselling, and represents the Chief Medical Officer for Wales on the UK Human Genetics Commission. He has (co)authored and edited seven books.
Professor Sarah Cunningham-Burley is Professor of Medical and Family Sociology and Co-Director of the Centre for Population Health Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. She is also Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships. She is on the steering group of the Scottish Healthcare Genetics Public Engagement Network (Gengage) and is Vice Chair of the Human Genetics Commission. Her research interests span medical and family sociology and include the social aspects of genetics and stem cell research, as well as research on families, health and illness across the lifecourse.
Professor Dena S. Davis holds the Endowed Presidential Chair in Health - Humanities & Social Sciences at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania. Until 2011 she was a Professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law (Cleveland State University). She has her PhD from University of Iowa (Religion) and her JD from University of Virginia, and was a Fellow in Bioethics at the Cleveland Clinic. She has been a Visiting Scholar at the National Human Genome Research Institute, Arizona State University, the Brocher Foundation, and the Hastings Center. Her most recent book is Genetic Dilemmas: Reproductive Technology, Parental Choices, and Children’s Futures (Oxford University Press).
Dr Martin Döring studied Romance linguistics and art history at the University of Hamburg and at the Université de Sorbonne, Paris. He completed his PhD on the politics of river floodings and river management in Germany and France in 2004. He then worked on several projects in Germany and the UK investigating the implementation of national parks in Germany, the social and cultural impacts of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK and “stem cell cultures” in the UK and Germany. He returned to Hamburg University in 2006, joining BIOGUM, where he first worked on obesity and prevention, before starting to research the social and cultural implications of systems and synthetic biology.
Dr Conor Douglas joined the Rathenau Instituut as a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the fall of 2010, and is working on the Synthetic Biology for Human Health: Ethical and Legal Issues (or SYHBEL) project, part of the EU’s FP7 Science and Society stream. He is also taking up a position at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam’s Medical Centre in the Community Genetics section, where he will work on a project on user configuration in Dutch bio-banking. He was a Post-Doctoral Researcher Fellow (2008-2010) at the University of British Columbia, and a Research Fellow in the Science and Technology Studies Unit at the University of York (2005-2009) where he undertook his PhD (on patient participation in medical R&D: the case of pharmocogenetics).
Dr Hannah Farrimond is a Research Fellow at Egenis. She completed her PhD at University College London examining the stigmatisation of smokers, particularly in relation to class/socio-economic status. She takes a psycho-social approach to studying health, lifestyles and risk, at Egenis she has investigated decision-making in relation to new genetic technologies (e.g. new non-invasive prenatal tests) and genetic/family history information (e.g. Type 2 diabetes). She also writes on qualitative methods (Q-methodology, family network methods) and research ethics.
Ângela Marques Filipe is a research student at the Centre for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society (BIOS), a junior researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES), University of Coimbra, and a PhD student at the London School of Economics. As a researcher she integrated the teams of several European projects including: MEDUSE (Governance, Health and Medicine. Opening Dialogue between Social Scientists and Users), DEEPEN (Deepening Ethical Engagement and Participation in Emerging Nanotechnologies) and EPOKs (European Patient Organizations in Knowledge Society). Her research interests are in issues related to social studies of science and health and medicine, and also biopower, biosociality and biocitizenship.
Dr Corrina Gibbs is a Research Fellow at the ESRC Innogen Centre, with a background in the agricultural and environmental industry, from both a policy and practical management perspective. Much of her work has focused on developing voluntary approaches for agriculture to deliver environmental benefits and understanding farmer behaviour, as a result of policy instruments and legislative frameworks. She has been involved in developing advisory packages for the Defra-funded Integrated Advice Pilot and is currently working on a GM animals project considering new technologies and legislative frameworks in the UK, the EU and internationally.
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg is an artist, designer and writer, interrogating science, technology and new roles for design in a biotech future as Design Fellow on Synthetic Aesthetics at Stanford University and Innogen at the University of Edinburgh. She studied architecture at the University of Cambridge, design at Harvard University and MA Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art. Her work has been exhibited at MoMA, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Wellcome Trust, the Design Museum and the National Museum of China. She writes, teaches and lectures internationally, including TEDglobal and PopTech. In 2011, her work was nominated for Designs of The Year and the Index Award and she received the World Technology Award for Design.
Dr Monika Gisler is a senior researcher at ETH Zurich and a lecturer at the University of Lucerne. She received an MA from
the University of Zurich and a PhD in history from the University of Basel in 2006. From 2000 to 2010 she held a position
as chief historian at the Institute of Geophysics at ETH Zurich. In the academic year 2004/2005 and again in 2008 she spent time as a research fellow at the University of California at Los Angeles. She has written two books and edited two more, and
has published many articles in the field of science studies and innovation. Her current research interests include, among others, the role of social bubbles in large projects and the history of failed innovations.
Dr Pippa Goldschmidt is a published author of short stories. She has worked as a policy advisor for both the UK and Scottish Governments on a variety of issues, including the regulation of activities in outer space, and homelessness. Much of her writing is inspired by science. Now with an MLitt in creative writing from Glasgow University she is currently writing a novel about a female astronomer. In February 2009 Pippa was appointed as Writer in Residence at the ESRC Genomics Policy and Research Forum in a year-long residency shared with Ken MacLeod.
Dr Gill Haddow is a Research Fellow at Innogen. She completed her PhD, 'Organ Transplantation and Donation The Paradox of Gifting and Dis/Embodiment', in the Sociology department at the University of Edinburgh in 2001. Gill's research interests include the sociology of the body, organ donation and transplantation, ethical, legal and social issues around the access and use of medical data and DNA and genetics, families and relationships.
Alison Hall is a Senior Policy Advisor specialising in law and genetics at the PHG Foundation. Professionally qualified both as a nurse and solicitor, her work focuses upon the analysis of ethical, legal and social issues arising from biomedical advances. These include the regulation of human tissue and data in health care and medical research; the impact of new technologies (such as whole genome sequencing); and the challenges arising from novel use of genetic data (such as population stratification). She is a member of a several national working groups concerned with prenatal screening and also sits as a lay member on an NHS research ethics committee.
Dr Ari Haukkala is a Lecturer in Social Psychology at the University of Helsinki. His current research program focuses on three main areas: psychosocial factors in health and well-being; theory-based behavior change interventions; and psychosocial aspects in genomic research. In this area, key questions include what the psychological consequences of genetic testing among families with heritable colon cancer are, and how information of heritable disease has been passed on within families. His most recent study was a collaboration with German and Austrian partners on 'Translational research in genomic medicine: Institutional and social aspects (TRi-Gen)'.
Dr Christine Hauskeller is a Senior Research Fellow at Egenis and an Honorary University Fellow at the Peninsula School for Medicine and Dentistry. Her academic work is directed at developing a critical philosophy of the life sciences, encompassing epistemology, ontology, moral philosophy and ethics. She completed her PhD in Philosophy at the University of Darmstadt. Through a postdoctoral position on the ethics of stem cell research her interst shifted toward the philosophy of biomedical science and technology. She is currently concentrating on the making of scientific objects, and on mutual interactions between science development, regulation and social and ethical attitudes, with respect in particular to genomics and stem cell research.
Professor Gail Henderson is Chair of the Department of Social Medicine and adjunct Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). A medical sociologist with training in public health, her research on bioethics has been funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute’s ELSI Program. In 2007 she became Director of the UNC Center for Genomics and Society, an ELSI research center. Its mission is research and training on ethical, legal, and social implications of large scale genomic studies. Her current research focuses on the return of results in genomic research and ELSI-relevant policies adopted by US biobanks.
Henri Jautrou is currently working on his PhD thesis at the University of Toulouse (LISST-CERS and INSERM) under the supervision of Marie-Pierre Bès and Pascal Ducournau. The work deals with genetic tests sold directly to consumers (DTC) for the last decade. How can the appearance of the (mainly digital) market be understood? Because of their characteristics, the tests are situated between various fields, such as medical and health practices, biology, informatics, and the internet (considered as a working tool and a medium). This situation makes DTC genetic testing a privileged tool to study biological and medical contemporary change, and to follow the interaction between these disciplines.
Professor Jonathan Kahn is Professor of Law at Hamline University School of Law. His current research focuses on the intersections of law, race, and genetics, with particular attention to how regulatory mandates intersect with scientific, clinical and commercial practice in producing and classifying genetic information in relation to racial categories. He has received research grants from the National Human Genome Research Institute, the National Library of Medicine, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is currently working on a book entitled Race in a Bottle: Law, Commerce and the Rise of Ethnic Medicine. Much of his work can be viewed at http://ssrn.com/author=180388.
Sara Katsanis is an Associate in Research in the Genome Ethics, Law & Policy Center at Duke University. Her research focuses on policy options for genetic testing applications in medicine and law enforcement and how genetic technologies affect individuals. She holds an MSc in Medical Genetics from Brunel University. From 1998-2002, she worked in Houston, first as a DNA Analyst, then as an Associate Scientist managing the genotyping facility at Lexicon Genetics, Inc. In 2002, she joined Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD as Laboratory Manager for the DNA Diagnostic Laboratory. In 2006, Katsanis began working with the Genetics & Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins in Washington, DC.
Dr Susan Kelly is a Senior Research Fellow at Egenis. She earned her PhD in Medical Sociology from the University of California, San Francisco, followed by a post-doctoral research position at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics funded by the National Institutes of Health. During this research fellowship, she studied the early development of non-invasive prenatal diagnostic technologies. She has published widely on genetics, disability and prenatal testing decisions.
Dr Lorraine Kerr is a scientific research manager at the University of Edinburgh. She holds a BSc in Molecular Biology and a PhD in Reproductive Immunology both from the University of Edinburgh. As Project Manger for Experiments, Lorraine manages the Kinetic Research Facility (KPF), which contains state-of-the-art research equipment including high throughput qPCR with associated liquid handling robotics, surface plasmon resonance, microcalorimetry and quantitative label free proteomics.
Dr Christine Knight is Policy Research Fellow at the ESRC Genomics Policy and Research Forum. Before joining the Forum she worked in government and parliamentary research in South Australia. Her current projects integrate research and knowledge exchange in their design and outputs. Topics include nutrition and causative models of obesity and diabetes; the regulation of embryo research and assisted reproductive technologies; knowledge brokers and knowledge exchange in the social sciences; the influence of literature on scientific thought and practice; and "vegetarian vampires” in contemporary fiction, film and television.
Professor Barbara Koenig is an anthropologist who studies contemporary biomedicine and works in the interdisciplinary field of biomedical ethics. She is a Professor (Adjunct) in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Institute for Health and Aging, University of California, San Francisco. Previously, she was Professor of Biomedical Ethics and Director of the Biomedical Ethics Research Unit at the Mayo Clinic, and an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine at Stanford University, where she served as Executive Director of the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics for a decade. She has pioneered the use of empirical social science methods in the study of ethical questions in science, medicine, and health. Her research focuses on new biomedical technologies, particularly those within the genomic sciences, and care near the end of life
Dr Christopher Lawless is a Teaching Fellow within the Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation at the University of Edinburgh. He has previously held positions at the Universities of Durham and Northumbria, and within the Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation at the London School of Economics. He originally trained as an analytical biochemist. Following a period working in research science he undertook a PhD at Durham University focusing on the sociology of forensic scientific reasoning. He continues to research policy issues relating to forensic science, as well as pursuing other studies relating to the governance of technological risk, encompassing transport safety and the built environment.
Dr Sandra Soo-Jin Lee is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University Medical School. She received her undergraduate degree in Human Biology from Stanford University and her doctorate in Medical Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco Joint Program. The focus of her research has been on the meaning of race in the new genetics and distributive justice and human genetic variation. She is currently working on a project entitled Social Networking and Personal Genomics: Implications for Health Research, funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute/NIH.
Nadine Levin is currently pursuing a DPhil in Anthropology at Oxford University, on a project entitled “Getting Personal with Biomedical Technologies: The construction of health and disease in personalized medicine research” that explores how and to what effect laboratory practices shape concepts of health and disease. At Oxford, she co-coordinates the Medical Anthropology Research Seminar. She holds a Rhodes Scholarship and Rosemary Stewart Scholarship. Her research interests include the intersection between science & technology studies and medical anthropology, and the social implications of emerging
biomedical technologies.
Dr Celine Lewis has worked as a researcher at Genetic Alliance UK for the past seven years and recently became research manager. She is also currently working as a researcher on the RAPID project, an NIHR funded programme aiming to improve the quality of NHS prenatal diagnostic services by evaluating early non-invasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD) based on cell free fetal (cff) DNA and RNA in maternal plasma. Her role is to investigate the views, preferences and information needs of people who are currently using, or may consider using NIPD in the future. She has just completed a PhD from Plymouth University looking at the psychosocial experience of genetic testing on patients.
Dr Jane Miller is a researcher with Inserm, University of Toulouse, working on a European project, Geuvadis (Genetic European Variation in Disease), looking at high throughput genomic sequencing. Prior to that she worked at Cesagen, Cardiff University, where she conducted research within the FH all-Wales cascade testing programme. She obtained her PhD from the School of Law, Sheffield University, with a project that examined the impact of genetic technologies through the moral theory of Alan Gewirth. Her MPhil was entitled ‘The ethics of preimplantation genetic diagnosis’. Dr Miller's first degree was in Anatomy and Pathology from St Andrews University. She worked for several years as a clinical embryologist and in scientific research.
Dr Jessica Mozersky is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Integration of Genetic Healthcare Technologies (Penn CIGHT). She received her PhD in Anthropology from the interdisciplinary Institute of Human Genetics and Health at University College London. In 2011, she was selected to be a visiting researcher at the Brocher Foundation in Hermance, Switzerland. She is a founding member of an international comparative social science BRCA Network, and has managed international multi-centre clinical trials for BRCA carriers and women at increased genetic risk of breast and ovarian cancer at University College London and King’s College London.
Dr Venla Oikkonen is a Lecturer in Gender Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland, from which she received her PhD for a project which examined the cultural transformations of evolutionary narrative in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century through a range of popular, literary and scientific texts. She is currently working on a postdoctoral project that examines national narratives in the age of genomics. The project, which is interdisciplinary, and combines science, gender, cultural and literary studies, focuses on the intersections of race, gender and sexuality in scientifically informed national discourse.
Dr Kate O’Riordan is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media and Film at the University of Sussex. Her research is a cultural studies of science and technology that deploys sexuality and gender as its key analytical categories. Publications include Queer Online, Human Cloning and the Media, and The Genome Incorporated.
Dr Kyriaki Papageorgiou received her PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of California, Irvine in 2007. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the UNESCO Fellowships Programme, the Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation, the Newkirk Center for Science and Society and the University of California Regents' Research and Writing Fellowships. She has been a postdoctoral research fellow at the Virtual Knowledge Studio (Netherlands) and now works as the Science and Technology Coordinator at the Delegation of the European Union to Egypt where she reports on research and innovation policies and activities across the Southern Mediterranean region.
Dr Imme Petersen is a cultural anthropologist at the Research Centre on Biotechnology, Society and the Environment (BIOGUM) at the University of Hamburg, Germany. She completed her PhD on the cultural concepts of person and life in political discourse in 2002. From 2002 until 2004, Imme worked as a journalist for a popular magazine on issues on science and medicine. She joined BIOGUM in 2006 where she first worked in the EU-research project “Advancing Clinico-Genomic Trials on Cancer”. Currently, she is working on systems biology in the course of the research project “Towards a holistic conception of life? Epistemic presumptions and socio-cultural implications of systems biology”.
Anna Pigeon is a PHD student in law under the supervision of Anne Cambon-Thomsen and Jacques Larrieu at the University of Toulouse. Her subject is 'Legal issues related to access and circulation of genetic information'. She worked from 2008 to 2010 at INSERM (Toulouse) as a researcher in law and bioethics. She is involved in a bioinformatics research project GEN2PHEN, which aims to unify human and model organism genetic variation databases towards increasingly holistic views into Genotype-To-Phenotype (G2P) data, and to link this system into other biomedical knowledge sources via genome browser functionality. She is working on ethical, legal and social issues with the final goal of constructing an ethical policy for the project.
Dr Anna Pokorska-Bocci is a Programme Lead at the PHG Foundation specialising in projects with a particular focus on science and industry. Prior to joining the Foundation in 2010, Anna gained expertise in science regulation while working for several years in the industrial sector, most recently as Senior Scientist and Project Manager for Asterand (previously Pharmagene), a human-tissue based contract research organisation. She originally graduated in molecular microbiology and genetics and went on to obtain a PhD in molecular genetics at the University of Paris XI. She then completed a postdoctoral training in molecular neuroscience at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology in Cambridge.
Professor Barbara Prainsack is Professor in Sociology and Politics of Bioscience at Brunel University, and Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Twin Research & Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College London. Her work focuses on regulatory, societal, and ethical aspects of bioscience and biomedicine; in particular, she has looked at regulatory and social dimensions of DNA testing in medicine and in forensics. She is a member of the National Austrian Bioethics Commission at the Federal Chancellery in Vienna, and Chair of the Scientific Committee of the European Science Foundation’s (ESF) Forward Look on Personalised Medicine for the European Citizen.
Dr Paula Saukko is a Reader in Social Science and Medicine at the Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University. She is a former Senior Research Fellow at Egenis. Her work focuses on medicine, lifestyle and new media/technologies, including heart disease prevention, eating disorders, genetic susceptibility testing, online ‘lifestyle’ genetic testing and nutrigenomics.
Dr Ernesto Schwartz Marín is currently a Research Associate in the School of Social Anthropology at The University of Manchester. His research interests revolve around policy making, genomic science and its medical and forensic applications in the global south, specifically Latin America. His PhD project at Egenis explored the construction of a sovereign realm around human genomic science in Mexico, and how Mestizaje (racial hybridity) served as the foundation to develop a particular postcolonial biopolitical ethos. He is currently conducting fieldwork in Bogotá and Medellin (Colombia), researching the way in which different publics such as clinicians, legislators, forensic specialists and patient groups appropriate and engage with genomic knowledge.
Professor Debra Skinner is a Senior Scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), Associate Director of the UNC Fragile X Research Center, and Associate Director of the UNC Center for Genomics and Society. A cultural and medical anthropologist, her current research focuses on the sociocultural and clinical contexts within which parents create understandings about their children’s genetic conditions and how families adapt to fragile X syndrome. She is also investigating the ELSI issues involved in expanded newborn screening, and in using whole exome/whole genome sequencing (WES/WGS) in clinical practice.
Dr Dirk Stemerding became a senior research with the Rathenau Institute's Technology Assessment division in October 2008. He is primarily concerned with developments in biotechnology, genomics and synthetic biology, with a special interest in the risks and societal implications of synthetic biology. He was awarded a doctorate by Maastricht University for his dissertation on the history of biology. As associate professor and researcher at the University of Twente, he examined various aspects of the ways in which the biosciences will impact on society. Key themes of his research and publications include the embedding and effects of genetics and genomics in health care.
Heather Strange is a doctoral researcher at Cardiff University's School of Social Sciences, working at Cesagen. She has a BA (Hons) in Philosophy (Cardiff) and a MA in Ethics and Social Philosophy (Cardiff). Heather's PhD project is a study of 'Women's reasoning on emerging non-invasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD) technologies'. This project will use qualitative interviews to generate data on both service user's and service provider's experiences with and responses to NIPD. She previously worked as a research assistant at Cesagen for projects including work on, the ethics of non-medical (social) sex selection, harmonisation and standardisation in ethics, nursing ethics, and the ethics of biometric technologies
Dr Steve Sturdy joined the staff of the University of Edinburgh in 1994 as a lecturer in the Science Studies Unit, and was appointed Deputy Director of the ESRC Genomics Forum in September 2006. Originally trained in the natural sciences, he began postgraduate studies in philosophy of science, then moved into social studies of science. His research combines perspectives from the history and sociology of medicine and the sociology of scientific knowledge, and focuses on the evolving relationship between medical science, medical practice and medical policy in Britain since the mid-19th century.
Dr Tamar Sharon holds a PhD from the Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies at Bar Ilan University, Israel, and currently holds a post-doctoral position in the Philosophy Department at Maastricht University. Her research lies at the crossroads between STS, the philosophy and ethics of technology and the sociology of medicine. Her PhD thesis offered a mapping of the growing literature on the philosophical implications of emerging biotechnologies (genetic, neuro-, reproductive) for what it means to be human, via the notion of the ‘posthuman’. In Maastricht, she is starting to research a more specific aspect of subject constitution in the framework of human/technology relations: the figure of the ‘healthy citizen’ in contemporary health discourses.
Dr Neil Stephens is co-director of Cesagen research theme 2 ‘Therapies and Enhancements’ and director of the Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine sub-theme. He has conducted ethnographic research on the topics of stem cell and cancer tissue biobanking (UK & Spanish Stem Cell Bank, onCore UK), interdisciplinary communication on developing technologies of stem cell science, Capoeira (Brazilian dance/martial art/game) and the emerging technology of growing meat with stem cells. He has published in Social Studies of Science, New Genetics and Society, Science as Culture, Revue d'Anthropologie des Connaissances, Cultural Studies, Qualitative Inquiry, Qualitative Research, British Journal of the Sociology of Education, Teaching and Teacher Education, Sport Education and Society, ATLA: Alternatives to Laboratory Animals, and SCRIPTED: A Journal of Law, Technology and Society as well as a number of book chapters.
Dr Brett St Louis has taught at the Universities of Bristol and California, San Diego and is currently Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is Associate Editor of the journal Identities and is also an editorial board member of Ethnic and Racial Studies and New Formations. He has published numerous articles and book chapters on various topics including the conceptual and practical status of race and discourses of racialisation within popular scientific commentaries of sporting performance. He is currently completing a book critically evaluating racial eliminativism entitled The Postracial Question.
Dr Richard Tutton is a Senior Lecturer at Cesagen, Lancaster. He completed his PhD in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University in 2002, and then took up a post in SATSU (Science and Technology Studies Unit) at the University of York working on an ESRC-funded project called Transformations in Genetic Subjecthood. He then moved to what is now called the Institute for Science and Society (ISS) at the University of Nottingham to work on the 'Race/ethnicity and Genetics in Science and Health' Project, funded by the Wellcome Trust's Biomedical Ethics Programme.
Sarah van Teeffelen earned a bachelor's degree in biology at Randolph-Macon Woman's College (USA). She is working on a master's degree in biology at Radboud University Nijmegen, with an emphasis in Science Communication. Having taught science at schools in the US, the UK and the Netherlands, she made the switch to research as a student assistant at the Centre for Society and Genomics in Nijmegen. There she worked on the projects 'Future of ELSA Genomics' and 'Visions of Interaction'. She is currently a researcher on the CSG project 'Wealth of Data? Blurring boundaries and user roles at the interface of medical, genetic and personal information', at the VU University Medical Center's Department of Clinical Genetics/EMGO Institute.
Jan Van Baren graduated in Humanistics at the University for Humanistics (UvH) in Utrecht, the Netherlands in 2007. For his Masters thesis, he looked into public information about genetics in the Netherlands. After graduation he worked as scenario consultant at the DTN in Amsterdam. He is currently working on his PhD on bioinformatics and human identity, in the department of Philosophy and Science Studies at Radboud University in Nijmegen. This project is part of the national research program of the Centre for Society and Genomics (CSG), in cooperation with the Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre (NBIC).
Dr Effy Vayena is currently a senior fellow and the academic coordinator of the PhD program in Biomedical Ethics and Law at the Institute of Biomedical Ethics, University of Zurich. Her research interests include ethics in reproductive health and assisted reproduction, research ethics, biobanking, ethics of novel uses of electronic health information, and personalised genomics. She teaches research ethics at graduate programs in the University of Zurich and is a consultant at the World Health Organization (WHO). From 2000-2007 she was a Technical Officer at WHO where she worked on issues of reproductive health, clinical research ethics, equity and research capacity building in developing countries.
Dr Eric Vermeulen studied obtained his PhD in sociology from the University of Amsterdam with an analysis of decision making in neonatal practice in The Netherlands and Belgium. He worked at the Netherlands Cancer Institute from 2006-2009 as a postdoctoral researcher. he then worked at the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam on a project of the Centre for Society and Genomics, ‘Governance of preventive genomics’, and is now investigating the topic of return of results in biobanking at the Netherlands Cancer Institute and the VU University Medical Centre.
Etienne Vignola-Gagné is pursuing a doctoral degree in Political Science at the University of Vienna, having completed his BA and MSc studies in Science, Technology and Society in Montréal, Canada. In Vienna he is a member of the Life-Science-Governance research platform. He also works as a doctoral researcher at the Fraunhofer ISI, Karlsruhe, Germany. His doctoral thesis traces the genealogy of translational research and translational medicine, and follows how these narratives re-align the regime of practices and policy-making of biomedical R&D.
Dr Matthias Wienroth is a Research Fellow at the ESRC Genomics Policy & Research Forum (University of Edinburgh) and Public Engagement Research Associate at the School of Mechanical and Systems Engineering (Newcastle University). His background in political science, adult education and sociology frames his research on science and policy practice, the agency of institutions, and narratives and discourses of new sciences and technologies.
Dr Dana Wilson-Kovacs is a Research Fellow at Egenis. Her interest in the social, organisational and cultural transformations brought about by biomedical and biotechnological innovations has been informed by a disciplinary background in sociology. Her recent published work examines professional dynamics and regulatory landscapes in stem cell research. Her current focus concerns the dynamics between scientific knowledge and contemporary forms of governance, with particular reference to the development, implementation and use of DNA techniques in forensic practice and the introduction of accelerated DNA profiling technologies (ADAPT) in police work.
David Wyatt took his undergraduate degree in sociology at the University of Exeter, then spent three years working in the financial services industry in London. He is now completing a PhD at Egenis. His research explores the training and the practices of Crime Scene Investigators in their use of DNA and forensic science in day-to-day police work. Entitled 'How DNA matters: An ethnographic investigation of police practices', his thesis is concerned with the ways in which taught and tacit knowledge is used in forensic practice and how expertise is developed and negotiated through everyday action and interaction.
Jochem Zwier holds a MSc in philosophy of technology. He is currently working as a PhD student at the Centre for Society and Genomics, Radboud University Nijmegen. His research project, entitled ‘Biomaterials as Biosynthetic Hybrids’ concerns an investigation into the philosophical and social implications of biomimetic devices, particularly focused on questions of human enhancement.
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