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CONFERENCE SPEAKERS

Annual Meeting and Student Research Conference
November 4–7, 2021
A Virtual Event


REGISTER

Don Howard

University of Notre Dame


Expertise and Responsibility: Why the Possession of Specialist Knowledge Entails an Obligation to Moral and Political Action 


This lecture expands upon the central thesis of Howard's recent American Scientist essay, “The Obligation to Act” (July-August 2021, 203-205), presenting an argument for the claim that the possession of specialist technical expertise entails an obligation to engage in moral and political action in connection with the ways in which the products of one’s research are employed. The core argument builds upon an appreciation of the complex sociomoral topology of technical communities and their embedding in the larger polis, deriving the obligation to act from the cardinal civic virtue of “participation,” meaning active engagement in community life in support of human flourishing. The more abstract, philosophical argument will be grounded in compelling historical examples of scientists and engineers whose practice and principles gave expression to this ideal.


Biography


Don Howard is the former director and a Fellow of the University of Notre Dame’s Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, and an affiliate of Notre Dame’s new Technology Ethics Center. He holds a permanent appointment as a Professor in the Department of Philosophy. After earning a bachelor's degree in physics from Michigan State University in 1971, Howard went on to obtain both a master's degree and a PhD in philosophy from Boston University, where he specialized in philosophy of physics under the direction of Abner Shimony. 

A Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and Past Chairs of APS’s Forum on the History of Physics and the Committee on International Freedom of Scientists, Howard is an internationally recognized expert on the history and philosophy of modern physics, especially the work of Einstein and Bohr. He served as Assistant Editor and Contributing Editor for The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein (Princeton University Press) and is Co-Editor of the Einstein Studies series (Springer). His video/audio lecture series, Albert Einstein: Physicist, Philosopher, Humanitarian, is available from The Great Courses, and a collection of his essays on Einstein is in preparation for the University of Chicago Press. Howard is also the co-founder (1990) of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science and was the founding co-editor of its journal, HOPOS (University of Chicago Press).

Howard has been writing and teaching about the ethics of science and technology for many years. Co-editor of the collection, The Challenge of the Social and the Pressure of Practice: Science and Values Revisited (University of Pittsburgh Press), Howard has led NSF-funded workshops on science and ethics at Notre Dame for physics REU students, was the lead PI on an NSF-EESE research ethics grant focusing on the social responsibilities of researchers, and has taught courses on topics ranging from the moral choices of atomic scientists during World War II and the Cold War, to the ethics of emerging weapons technologies, robot ethics, and data ethics. He has also served as the Secretary of the International Society for Military Ethics. Among his current research interests are ethical and legal issues in cyberconflict and cybersecurity, the ethics of autonomous systems, and ethical issues in energy production and climate change. His paper, “Virtue in Cyberconflict,” was published in 2014 in the volume, Ethics of Information Warfare (Springer), his essay on “Civic Virtue and Cybersecurity” was published in 2017 in the volume, The Nature of Peace and the Morality of Armed Conflict (Palgrave Macmillan), and his paper, “The Moral Imperative of Green Nuclear Energy Production” appeared in the Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies in early 2020. His editorials on technology ethics have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, on CNN, at InsideSources, NBC Think, and in other venues.
 

Jessica Wyndham 

American Association for the Advancement of Science


The Social Responsibilities of Scientists: A View from Within 


Debate and discussion about the responsibilities of scientists to society have evolved to a crescendo during the COVID-19 pandemic, but until recently we had limited empirically based information about what scientists themselves thought are their responsibilities. Through an ambitious global survey on the perspectives of scientists and engineers as to their responsibilities – in research, development, communication, instruction and so on – we start to glean areas of consensus and remaining areas of contention.  


Biography


Jessica Wyndham is Director of the Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her areas of expertise include the intersections of science, technology, human rights and ethics; the social responsibilities of scientists and engineers; and the role of professional scientific, engineering, and health societies in the promotion and protection of human rights. She has managed projects throughout Asia, the Pacific, Africa, and the Americas. Her work has been published in various journals including the European Journal of Human Rights, Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, Mechanical Engineering, Science, and Science and Engineering Ethics. A human rights lawyer by training, Jessica holds a BA (Hons.)/LLB (Hons.) (J.D. equivalent) from the Australian National University and an LLM from the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia). Jessica served as Principal Investigator for the National Science Foundation grant “The Social Responsibilities of Scientists and Engineers: A Global Survey."
 

Glenn Branch 

National Center for Science Education


Adding Value to Science Education 


Despite its trust of science and scientists in general, the public is not always willing to accept the scientific community’s consensus when it comes to a handful of topics such as evolution and climate change, apparently owing to a mixture of ignorance and ideology. Teachers in the public schools are expected, if not always ideally equipped, to address ignorance, but what are they supposed to do about the ideologies and their underlying values that obstruct understanding and acceptance of science? Emphasis on the nature of science, through both content and pedagogy, is often recommended, and there is convincing evidence of its efficacy. But the conception of the nature of science is undergoing enrichment, thanks to a number of philosophers of science who have urged for the scientific endeavor to be recognized as structured by distinctive values and regulated by distinctive virtues. The enriched conception of the nature of science helps not only to systematize the ways in which the nature-of-science approach is presently implemented but also to suggest fruitful ways of developing it further. Increasing and improving the treatment of the nature of science in the public schools’ science classroom along these lines will help to restore the public’s trust in science and scientists with respect to topics that are socially but not scientifically controversial. 


Biography


Glenn Branch is the deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, where his work involves organizing resistance to attempts to undermine the teaching of socially but not scientifically controversial topics such as climate change and evolution. He received the Evolution Education Award for 2020 from the National Association of Biology Teachers. He has written extensively about climate change and evolution education, and threats to them, for scholarly journals, reference works, and popular magazines. With Eugenie C. Scott, he edited Not In Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design is Wrong For Our Schools (2006). Branch is currently also coordinating NCSE’s survey research program, which recently produced a major publication: Eric Plutzer, Glenn Branch, and Ann Reid, “Teaching evolution in U.S. public schools: A continuing challenge,” Evolution: Education and Outreach 2020; 13(14).
 

Katina Michael 

Arizona State University 


Embedding Human Values in the Design of a Technotherapeutic Implantable System for US Warfighters: A Multi-Layered Socio-Technical Inquiry from Proof of Concept to Prototype and Testing 


This presentation emphasizes the need for human values to be embedded in the design process of a novel technotherapeutic implantable system for US warfighters being developed by DARPA’s BTO called the “ADAPTER”. As an ELSI panelist my role is to raise awareness on the importance of ethical legal and social aspects and possible implications as they pertain to the development of the NTRAIN semi-autonomous complex system. When we consider responsible innovation the question often asked is how to actually prove that values or principles have indeed been embedded into the design process and executed with the appropriate safeguards. Here we take a look at three well-known stages of development- proof of concept, prototyping and testing as they align to DARPA’s three phases of technical activities, and ask the fundamental corresponding ELSI questions. The main contribution of the presentation is a multi-layered socio-technical inquiry from the macro (defense oriented viability supported by government drivers), to the meso (technical oriented feasibility articulated by systems of innovation), and the micro (end-user desirability driven by social contracts and choice) levels.


Biography


Katina Michael BIT, MTransPriv, PhD is a professor at Arizona State University, a Senior Global Futures Scientist in the Global Futures Laboratory and has a joint appointment in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence. She is the director of the Society Policy Engineering Collective (SPEC) and the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society. Katina is a senior member of the IEEE and a Public Interest Technology advocate who studies the social implications of technology. She began her career in industry working in management information systems in 1994 at OTIS Elevator Company, followed by Andersen Consulting, and then as a pre-sales telecommunications engineer until 2002. She was employed as a Professor at the University of Wollongong from 2002 till 2018, and was the Associate Dean International for the Faculty of Engineering and Information Systems overseeing 8 twinning and partner programs throughout Asia and the Middle East. Katina has consulted to various government agencies in both a paid and unpaid capacity, and holds several positions on boards, including the Council on RFID, IEEE SSIT, the Australian Privacy Foundation and has served as a member of the Consumer Federation of Australia contributing to five biometric standards. Katina has been a visiting professor at Nanjing University in China and the University of Southampton in the UK. She has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council for research into citizen-centered smart city design, adaptive AI training systems, and location-based services. She has held 14 annual workshops in the social implications of national security space and chaired 3 international symposia on technology and society (ISTAS) in Wollongong, Toronto and Phoenix. She is the Senior Editor of the socio-economic impact section in IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine and was the editor in chief of the award-winning IEEE Technology and Society Magazine. In 2019 she took on the role of working group chair for the IEEE P2089 standard. In 2020 she received the ICTO Golden Medal for lifetime achievement award for exceptional contributions to research in information systems, and the IEEE Phoenix section’s Outstanding Member Contributing to Global Humanitarian Projects Award for her contributions to a better understanding of the impact of emerging technologies on humanity. In 2017, she also received the Brian M. O'Connell Society on the Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) Distinguished Service Award. www.katinamichael.com 

Dominique Brossard 

University of Wisconsin, Madison 


Trust in Science: Ending the Debate? 


Biography


Dominique Brossard is professor and chair in the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an affiliate of the UW-Madison Robert & Jean Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies, the UW-Madison Energy Institute, the UW-Madison Global Health Institute, the UW-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and the Morgridge Institute for Research. Her teaching responsibilities include courses in strategic communication theory and research, with a focus on science and risk communication.

Brossard’s research agenda focuses on the intersection between science, media and policy with the Science, Media and the Public (SCIMEP) research group, which she co-directs. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the International Communication Association, Brossard is an internationally known expert in public opinion dynamics related to controversial scientific issues. She is particularly interested in understanding the role of values in shaping public attitudes and using cross-cultural analysis to understand these processes. She has published more than 100 research articles in outlets such as Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science Communication, Public Understanding of Science, the International Journal of Public Opinion, and Communication Research and has been an expert panelist for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) on various occasions. She currently serves on the NASEM Climate Communication Initiative Advisory Committee as well as on the Executive Committee of the Societal Experts Action Network (SEAN), which aims at facilitating rapid and actionable responses to social, behavioral, and economic-related COVID-19 questions. Brossard is a member of the Board on Life Sciences of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. She is also on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences and she is the Chair of the Advisory Committee for the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation.

Brossard has a varied professional background that includes experience in the lab and the corporate world. Notably, she spent five years at Accenture in its Change Management Services Division. She was also the communication coordinator for the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project II (ABSPII), a position that combined public relations with marketing communication and strategic communication. Her family worked dairy farms for many generations.

Brossard earned her M.S. in plant biotechnology from the Ecole Nationale d’Agronomie de Toulouse and her M.P.S and Ph.D. in communication from Cornell University.

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