Prof. Francis Shen Part of the Interdisciplinary and Multi-Institutional Neurotech Justice Accelerator Team Launched by the Dana Foundation at Mass General Brigham

Prof. Francis Shen, Solly Robins Distinguished Research Fellow, is part of the interdisciplinary and multi-institutional Neurotech Justice Accelerator at Mass General Brigham (NJAM) team launched by the Dana Foundation. The five-year $8.6 million initiative aims to improve equitable access to beneficial neurotechnologies and to mitigate the associated risks in medical and legal settings. Under the team consisting of practitioners and scholars in neurosurgery, neuroethics, and neurolaw from Massachusetts General Hospital, the Harvard Medical School, and the University of Minnesota, NJAM integrates training in clinical practice, law, ethics, and neuroscience — disciplines that typically operate independently. Specifically from a legal perspective, NJAM will offer an interdisciplinary neurolaw training program through which participants will identify barriers and opportunities of deploying neurotechnology as evidence in legal settings, collaborate with judges and lawyers, and improve access to neuroscience tools for resource-poor litigants. Prof. Shen said, “Judges and other legal practitioners are already being presented with evidence drawn from neurotechnologies that raise questions about justice, access, and privacy. This is likely to increase as new capabilities and applications are discovered.”