Nita A. Farahany will be the keynote speaker for the College of Applied Science and Technology’s 2024 Science and Technology Week. She is scheduled to talk Monday, April 8, at 7 p.m. in the Brown Ballroom of the Bone Student Center. The event is free and open to the public.
Farahany is the Robinson O. Everett Distinguished Professor of Law & Philosophy and founding director of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society. She is a widely published scholar on the ethics of emerging technologies, and author of the book The Battle for Your Brain: Defending Your Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology.
Farahany is a frequent commentator for national media and radio and keynote speaker at events including TED, the Aspen Ideas Festival, the World Economic Forum, and judicial conferences worldwide.
From 2010-17, she served as a commissioner on the U.S. Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. She is also an appointed member of the National Advisory Council for the National Institute for Neurological Disease and Stroke, an elected member of the American Law Institute and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, past President of the International Neuroethics Society, an ELSI (ethical, legal, and social implications) advisor to the NIH Brain Initiative and to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an appointed member of both the Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders and the Standing Committee on Biotechnology Capabilities and National Security Needs for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and a member of the Global Future Council on Frontier Risks and Expert Network for the World Economic Forum. She served as reporter for the study committee and later Drafting Committee on updating the Uniform Determination of Death Committee for the Uniform Law Commission.
In 2022, she was appointed by Governor Roy Cooper to the NC Delegation for the Uniform Law Commission, and currently serves in that capacity. Farahany is a co-editor-in-chief and co-founder of the Journal of Law and the Biosciences and on the board of advisors for Scientific American.
She also serves on scientific and ethics advisory boards for corporations.
Prior to her work in science, Farahany received her A.B. in genetics, cell, and developmental biology from Dartmouth College, an A.L.M. in biology from Harvard University, and a J.D. and M.A. from Duke University, as well as a Ph.D. in philosophy.
To learn more about Science and Technology Week, please visit the event website.
