Nita A. Farahany

Farahany began her work at Vanderbilt University to complete her dissertation.[7] However, in 2006, she continued working at Vanderbilt as an Assistant Professor of Law.[2] She left in 2011 to become the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor of Human Rights at Stanford Law.[8]

Farahany currently is a tenured professor of Law and Philosophy at Duke University[9]. Additionally, she is the founding director of the Duke initiative for Science and Society and the chair of the Bioethics and Science Policy MA[10].

The Bioethics and Science Policy program is a program designed to merge bioethics training and policy and law training to add a new depth to education in these areas. It is the first of its kind. Questions concerning technological advancements affecting ethics surrounding biological science and neuroscience are discussed heavily in this program, as well as preparing graduate students to be able to communicate science more efficiently with society.[11]

SLAPLAB is the Duke Initiative for Science and Society laboratory designed to bring scholars in undergraduate studies all the way up to postdocs and faculty together. Here, directed by Farahany, they discuss new studies in ethics at the intersection of science, society, law, and philosophy. Additionally, the lab designs and undertakes new studies, present about current ongoing studies and new research, communicate with the public, and host expert speakers.

Ongoing Research projects and requirements for members can be found on the SLAPLAB website.

• International Neuroethics Society, or INS - Farahany has been a board member of the INS since 2012. She is the president/president elect in the 2018-2019 cycle and will be the president in the 2019-2020 cycle.[3]
• Neuroethics Division of the Multi-Council Working group for BRAIN initiative[3]
• President's Research Council of Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, or CIFAR[3]
• Expert Network for World Economic Forum[3]
• Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues[4]
• Section on Jurisprudence for the Association of American Law Schools: Chair Elect[13]
• Serves on several corporations' Scientific and Ethics Advisory Boards[13]

• Conferences for the US Court of Appeals[3]
• Conference for the National Judicial College[3]
• The American Association for the Advancement of Science[3]
• National Academies of Science Workshops[3]
• The American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy[3]
• Aspen Ideas Festival[3]
• The World Economic Forum[3]
• TED[14]
• Testifying before US Congress- during the hearing on “What Facial Recognition Technology Means for Privacy and Civil Liberties”. Presented to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law[3][15]

In November, 2018, Farahany gave a TED talk on the potential impact neurotechnology (decoding human thoughts) could have on societies around the world. She delved into the potential ethical obligations we, as a global society, must agree upon and how we might be able to codify and enforce said ethical decisions.[14] Farahany poses the question: what value should be placed on the thoughts in our head and what rights should humans have to be able to decide when, if ever, those thoughts are shared. The implications behind technology that can read thoughts are already being realized in China where some workers are required to wear EEG machines under their hats in order to collect information on that worker's productivity, focus, and mood.[16] Farahany stated her concern that society is not adapting as quickly as technology, opining "I think this is because people don't yet understand or believe the implications of this new brain-decoding technology. "[14] To protect ourselves from advancing neurotechnology, Farahany suggests a right to cognitive liberty be recognized as a part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[14]