Events
109 Leidy Labs, 3740 Hamilton Walk
MindCORE/Medical Ethics & Health Policy Lecture: "The Past, Present, and Future of Neurolaw" - Francis X. Shen, JD, PhD
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2026-03-03 12:00:00
2026-03-03 13:00:00
America/New_York
MindCORE/Medical Ethics & Health Policy Lecture: "The Past, Present, and Future of Neurolaw" - Francis X. Shen, JD, PhD
The Past, Present, and Future of Neurolaw
Francis X. Shen, JD, PhD
Professor of Law
Solly Robbins Distinguished Research Fellow
University of Minnesota
For over a century brain science has fascinated the law. This talk will explore the past, present, and
future intersections of neuroscience and law. Will advances in neuroscience enable the legal
system to achieve greater safety and justice, or will these technologies lead to greater inequity
and intrusion? In this talk, Dr. Shen will provide cautionary tales, but also provide a vision for
ethical and effective adoption of neurotechnology. He will consider the legal and ethical
implications of moving too fast—and also moving too slow—to adopt these new technologies.
Francis X. Shen, JD, PhD is a Professor of Law, Solly Robbins Distinguished Research Fellow, and
Faculty Member of the Graduate Program in Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota. He is
Chief Innovation Officer for the MGH Center for Law, Brain & Behavior (CLBB) at MGH. He
directs the Shen Neurolaw Lab, whose motto is, “Every story is a brain story”.
Streaming available via Zoom.
Registration required; Lunch to follow event.
109 Leidy Labs, 3740 Hamilton Walk
Penn Medical Ethics
CCB 08-031, 8th Floor, 3600 Civic Center Blvd. (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Health Policy Research Seminar: Jamie Daw, PhD, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University
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2026-03-12 10:00:00
2026-03-12 11:00:00
America/New_York
Health Policy Research Seminar: Jamie Daw, PhD, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University
"The Postpartum Assessment of Health Survey: Generating Data to Inform Policies to Improve Maternal Health."
The United States has a higher maternal mortality rate than comparable peer countries and wide disparities by race, geography, and insurance status. More than two-thirds of pregnancy-related deaths occur in the postpartum year, yet this critical period has long been overlooked in clinical and policy efforts to improve maternal health. Dr. Daw will provide an overview of a multi-state primary data collection effort she leads—the Postpartum Assessment of Health Survey (PAHS)—which aims to fill a longstanding gap in evidence on health status, health care use, and social determinants of health in the year following childbirth. She will discuss the project’s motivation, methodology, key findings, policy impact, and lessons learned.
Dr. Daw is a health services and policy researcher whose work focuses on improving maternal and infant health through evidence-based health care policy and health system interventions. She specializes in quantitative methods, including quasi-experimental designs and the analysis of large survey and administrative datasets. Her current projects, funded by the NIH and AHRQ, examine the effects of Medicaid policy changes and innovative care delivery models on health care access, patient experiences, and health outcomes in the year following childbirth. She also leads the Postpartum Assessment of Health Survey (PAHS), a first-of-its-kind, multi-state representative survey of maternal health in the year after birth. Her research has been cited in policy documents, published in leading journals, and featured in national and international media outlets. Dr. Daw holds a PhD in Health Policy from Harvard University, an MSc from the University of British Columbia, and a BHSc from McMaster University.
CCB 08-031, 8th Floor, 3600 Civic Center Blvd. (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Penn Medical Ethics
3600 Civic Center Blvd., 8th Floor
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "Paternalism, Autonomy, and Duties of Aid" - Sophie Gibert, PhD
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2026-03-17 12:00:00
2026-03-17 13:00:00
America/New_York
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "Paternalism, Autonomy, and Duties of Aid" - Sophie Gibert, PhD
Paternalism, Autonomy, and Duties of Aid
Sophie Gibert, PhD
Assistant Professor, Legal Studies & Business Ethics Department
Wharton School | University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Gibert's research is primarily in normative ethics and she writes on topics such as manipulation, paternalism, and autonomy. Dr. Gibert also writes about issues in bioethics, and co-hosts a bioethics podcast called Bio(un)ethical.
More detail to follow.
Registration required; Streaming available via Zoom.
3600 Civic Center Blvd., 8th Floor
Penn Medical Ethics
3600 Civic Center Blvd., 8th Floor
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "Why They Blow the Whistle: Exposing Abuses in Medical Research" - Carl Elliott, MD, PhD
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2026-03-31 12:00:00
2026-03-31 13:00:00
America/New_York
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "Why They Blow the Whistle: Exposing Abuses in Medical Research" - Carl Elliott, MD, PhD
Why They Blow the Whistle: Exposing Abuses in Medical Research
Carl Elliott, MD, PhD
Professor, Department of Philosophy
University of Minnesota
In popular culture, whistleblowers are conscience-driven heroes who triumph against the odds.
Yet when medical research abuses occur, institutions deny wrongdoing even when it is glaringly obvious, and rarely do mistreated research subjects or their families get any real justice.
Whistleblowing is the exception, not the rule. In many scandals, doctors and other staff members remain silent for years while unwitting research subjects are abused. What is it that leads a rare individual to say no to practices that are deceptive, exploitative or harmful when everyone else remains silent?
Streaming available via Zoom.
3600 Civic Center Blvd., 8th Floor
Penn Medical Ethics
3600 Civic Center Blvd. Room 8-031
2026 Renee Fox Lecture: Joanna Kempner, PhD, "Experiment Perilous, Revisited: Hope, Deceit, and Survival in Psychedelic Science"
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2026-04-07 12:00:00
2026-04-07 13:00:00
America/New_York
2026 Renee Fox Lecture: Joanna Kempner, PhD, "Experiment Perilous, Revisited: Hope, Deceit, and Survival in Psychedelic Science"
Late in her career, Renée Fox worried that bureaucratic medicine had replaced the intimate experiments where courageous physicians and patients navigated uncertainty together. Kempner finds those spaces reconstituted in the psychedelic underground, where people failed by medicine offer support, trade information, test potential treatments, and collect data. In this talk, she asks what happens to those intimate experiments when the underground and the institutions that once ignored them begin to collaborate.
Joanna Kempner, PhD, is an associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University, where she studies how culture, politics, and institutions shape science and medicine—particularly what happens when they fail.
Kempner’s most recent, Psychedelic Outlaws: The Movement Revolutionizing Modern Medicine (Hachette, 2024), chronicles how a patient-led community discovered that psilocybin could treat cluster headaches. Her earlier book, Not Tonight: Migraine and the Politics of Gender and Health (Chicago, 2014), examined how stigma and gender bias shape the treatment of pain. Her award-winning research spans sociology, medicine, bioethics, and health policy, and is often covered by media outlets including the New York Times, NPR, and PBS NewsHour. She received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.
The Renée C. Fox Lecture in Medicine, Culture, and Society was established to honor the legacy of Dr. Fox, whose pioneering work in the sociology of medicine, medical research, and ethics deeply shaped multiple disciplines. Her commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship and critical inquiry continues to inspire this annual event.
3600 Civic Center Blvd. Room 8-031
Penn Medical Ethics
To be added to MEHP's events listserv, please contact lisa.bailey@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.