Jad Abumrad

Jad Abumrad is the co-host, founder and producer of NRP’s podcast Radiolab. The podcast is described as “a show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience.”

Abumrad will lecture on the understanding of science as an intrinsic part of human experience and as a part of larger philosophical questions about life.

Ruha Benjamin

Ruha Benjamin works as an associate professor at Princeton University in the Department of African American Studies and is a 2016-2017 felllow at the Institute for Advanced Study. Benjamin is the author of People’s Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier. She has also written numerous articles and book chapters that examine the social demensions of biotechnology.

Benjamin will speak on a social justice approach to reproductive technologies.

Diana Blithe

At the National Institute of Health, Diana Blithe works as the program director for the Male Contraceptive Development Program. She oversees clinical trials to test safe and efficacy of new contraceptive agents for men and women as the co-director of the Contraceptive Clinical Trials Network.

Diana Blithe will present on the recent state of research regarding male contraceptives.

Jacob Corn

Jacob Corn works as the Scientific Director of the Innovative Genomics Initiative. At UC Berkeley. He has written on limiting the use of CRISPR/Cas9 in the human germlineuntil we can better delineate safe and ethical parameters for its use.

Corn’s lecture will discuss the future of genome editing by asking: How does genome editing work? How is it accelerating biomedical research? How can it be used to cure disease? What are potential ethical concerns with its use in humans?

Alison Murdoch

Professor Alison Murdoch teaches Reproductuve Medicine at Newcastle University. She is also qualified as a gynaecologist and fertility clinician. been part of the team of researchers who have been developing IVF technology to prevent transmission of mitochondrial disease. She has been the Chair of the British Fertility Society and a member of the Nuffield Concil on Bioethics.

Murdoch will speak on pre-implantation embro research and mitochondrial transfer concentrating on the eithical and regulatory processes that impact this type of research in the UK.

Marsha Saxton

Marsha Saxton is an instructor in disability studies at the University of Califronia, Berkley and is also the director of research and training at the World Institude on Disability. She has written about disability rights, personal assistance, women’s health, employment, violence prevention, and genetic screening issues in numerous books, films, and articles. She has written extensively on disability rights and selective abortion.

Saxton will address the views and experiences of people with disabilities in relation to genetic and reproductive technology.

Charis Thompson

Charis Thompson is Professor of Sociology , London School of Economics and Political Science as well as a former founding director of the ScienceTechnology, and Society Center at the University of California, Berkley. She is also the Chancellor’s Professor and Chair of Gender and Women’s Studies. She has written several books in relation to science, technology, and democracy. Thompson serves on the Nuffield Council on Bioethics Working Group on Genome Editing.

Thompson will lecture on the co-emergence of reproductive and genomic technologies in the age of machine learning.