April 04, 2025 | BME80G Series: Jonathan LoTempio on Nuremberg moments: bioethics pasts and futures

Friday, April 04, 2025

1:20 – 2:25 pm 

J. Baskin Aud 101 (flyer)

On Friday, April 04 at 1:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Jonathan LoTempio on the foundational aspects of bioethics as it developed in the last 80 years.

A zoom option or recording may be available for members of the campus community who cannot attend in person. Contact Colleen Stone (colleen@ucsc.edu) to request access.

Nuremberg moments: bioethics pasts and futures

Bioethics as we understand it today is a product of the rules-based international order. It is a unique field of study because it has been sanctioned or supported at the highest level of government, rather than devolved to specialist agencies. However, this position is changing, offering time for stock-taking and consideration of new futures. In this seminar, we will discuss some pre-World War II antecedents of 20th-century bioethics, the bioethical wilderness from the War and Nuremberg up until the Belmont Report, and the Commission Era from 1974-2016. With this foundation, we will consider the futures of bioethics, public health ethics, and data ethics in light of our newly fractured rules-based order.

Dr. Jonathan LoTiempo Jr, Fellow in Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Genetics and Genomics at Penn Medical Ethics & Health Policy.

Dr. Jonathan LoTempio Jr. is a globally engaged researcher working at the intersection of genomics, bioethics, and international policy. As a postdoctoral fellow in bioethics and human data at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, he studies the ethical, legal, and social implications of emerging genomic technologies within an international framework.

LoTempio’s contributions to the field span bioinformatics, science diplomacy, global health, and bioethics initiatives. During his doctoral work, he expanded an extant medical collaboration between researchers in Washington, DC and Kinshasa, DR Congo to include reference genomics projects to enhance diagnostic rates for rare and inherited conditions in sub–Saharan Africa. As a Fulbright Schuman Fellow, he conducted research at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, Austria, and United Nations University-CRIS in Bruges, Belgium, where he examined the role of science and technology in international governance with a focus on data sharing. He spent the summer after his Fulbright doing archival research at the UN Office at Geneva in search of the postwar antecedents of open science. Woven through each of these has been a commitment to enhancing ethical research and fundamental study of bioethics.

He has been funded by the US National Institutes of Health, the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the US Department of State and the EU Directorate General for Education and Culture through the Belgium-Luxembourg Fulbright Commission, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, San Francisco, California, the Clark Family Foundation of Bethesda, Maryland, and the Cosmos Club of Washington, DC.

He holds a BS in biochemistry (University of Rochester) and a PhD in genomics and bioinformatics (George Washington University). Before his academic career, he spent three years working in program management and policy evaluation at the US National Institutes of Health and the Obama White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Readings

Required: bioethical primary sources
  1. Nuremberg Doctor’s Trial PDF (get from instructor)
    1. Section: Judgment – Permissible Medical Experiments (pages 11-14 only, charges on pages 6-11 may be disturbing but instructive)
  2. Obama’s apology to the Guatemalan president 
    1. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2010/10/01/read-out-presidents-call-with-guatemalan-president-colom

Required papers:

  1. The Nuremberg Code at 70 (free online): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2649074
Optional, but very good:
  1. Wikipedia on the rules-based order:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_international_order
  2. Elenor Roosevelt speech on the struggle for human rights at Sorbonne, 1948: https://erpapers.columbian.gwu.edu/struggle-human-rights-1948
  3. Nature article, “Overcoming challenges associated with broad sharing of human genomic data,” bibliography is very good for genomics / data / engineers.

Co-hosted by the UCSC Department of Biomolecular Engineering, the Genomics Institute, and the Science & Justice Research Center.

April 10, 2025 | Indians and Energy Transition: Green New Deal to ‘Drill, Baby, Drill!’

Thursday, April 10, 2025

4:00 – 5:30 pm 

Namaste Lounge

Join the Center for Reimagining Leadership and co-sponsors in the Namaste Lounge for a conversation with Andrew Curley (Diné), an Associate Professor in the School of Geography, Development & Environment at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Carbon Sovereignty: Coal, Development, and Energy Transition in the Navajo Nation (2023).

Indians and Energy Transition: Green New Deal to ‘Drill, Baby, Drill!’

Energy in the United States is a topic of extreme importance. It is foundational to the U.S. economy, infrastructure, development in local communities, and accelerating processes of climate change. In political rhetoric, energy conversations oscillate between broad ideas of clean energy technology to opening more and more protected spaces for oil and gas drilling. Tribal communities are often caught in the middle of these political movements. Native leaders, planners, and workers must anticipate energy headwinds while shoring up their sources of development and revenue while at the same time thinking through the politics of climate change and the negative environmental impacts of energy projects, such as new kinds of contamination, threatening limited water sources or climate change. In this presentation, I will offer new research focused on the perspectives of Diné, Southern Ute Indian Tribe, and Jicarilla Apache community members in places with long histories of fossil fuel production, primarily oil & gas as well as coal and uranium.

Sponsored by: Center for Reimagining Leadership, Environmental Studies Department, Institute for Social Transformation, Kresge College, Rachel Carson College, Science and Justice Research Center

April 10, 2025 | Public Research Action Network: Stand Up for Science; Stand Up for Knowledge

Thursday, April 10, 2025

4:00 – 7:30 pm 

Coastal Science Building CBB110

Join the newly-created Public Research Action Network!

Building on the momentum from the highly successful Stand up for Science UCSC rallies held in March 2025, faculty are forming a group that will meet regularly with the slogan “Stand Up for Science; Stand Up for Knowledge”. The goal will be to keep up with the changing landscape regarding publicly-based research across all disciplines. The format is collaborative, with a plan for ~30-45 minutes of sharing some current events and updates, and ~45 minutes of action—oriented outreach plans including possibly letter and op-ed writing, working on communications to the UCSC Academic Senate and/or administrators, connecting with state and federal leaders, or other ideas to be crafted together. Meetings will take place once/month on the 2nd Thursday. 

Parking at the Coastal Science Campus is available with no permits after 5pm.

April 11, 2025 | BME80G Series: Christof Koch on Consciousness and its Place in Nature

Friday, April 11, 2025

1:20 – 2:25 pm 

VIRTUAL (flyer)

On Friday, April 11 at 1:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Christof Koch.

A zoom option or recording may be available for members of the campus community who cannot attend in person. Contact Colleen Stone (colleen@ucsc.edu) to request access.

Consciousness and its Place in Nature

Any scientific theory of consciousness, here meant as any experience – feeling-like-something, seeing, smelling, thinking, fearing, dreaming – needs to not only explain the relationship between experience and its substrate, the neural correlate of consciousness, but also why different experiences feel the way they do – why space feels spatially extended, why time flows and why colors feel different from an infected tooth or the taste of Nutella. Most contemporary theories of consciousness are based on computational functionalism. Integrated Information Theory takes a purely operational approach rooted in causal power. IIT argues that the neuronal correlates of consciousness, the maximum of intrinsic cause-effect power, are the posterior hot zone, and that certain types of meditative or psychedelic experiences may go together with a “silent” cortex. I will discuss clinical progress achieved in locating the footprints of such experiences to the posterior part of the cerebral cortex and in reliably detecting the presence of covert consciousness in patients with Disorder of Consciousness.

Christof Koch, PhD, Meritorious Investigator, Allen Institute, Seattle, Chief Scientist, Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, Santa Monica

Christof Koch PhD, is a neuroscientist best known for his studies and writings exploring the basis of consciousness, starting with the molecular biologist Francis Crick. Trained as a physicist, Christof was for 27 years a professor of biology and engineering at the California Institute of Technology. In 2011, he joined the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle as their Chief Scientist, becoming the President in 2015. He is now Meritorious Investigator at the Allen Institute and the Chief Scientist of the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, with its focus on understanding consciousness, and how this knowledge can benefit humanity. His latest book is Then I am myself the world.

Co-hosted by the UCSC Department of Biomolecular Engineering, the Genomics Institute, and the Science & Justice Research Center.

April 18, 2025 | BME80G Series: Kim TallBear on From Feminist Science Studies to Native-Led Science for Land and Life

Friday, April 18, 2025

1:20 – 2:25 pm 

J. Baskin Aud 101 (flyer)

On Friday, April 18 at 1:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Kim TallBear, Professor, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society.

A zoom option may be available for members of the campus community who cannot attend in person. Contact Colleen Stone (colleen@ucsc.edu) to request access.

From Feminist Science Studies to Native-Led Science for Land and Life

Indigenous peoples are often at the receiving end of the colonial gaze, including that of scientific researchers whose work has served US and Canadian national development. Kim TallBear is best known for her anthropological study of colonial narratives such as that of the “Vanishing Indian” that animate human population genetics research. Over the past fifteen years, she has worked with scientists and social scientists to channel feminist and Indigenous analyses of science into training Indigenous scientists in critical approaches to genomics. The resulting program, Summer internship for INdigenous peoples in Genomics (SING), goes beyond critique to transform science to support Indigenous governance and life. SING Canada, founded in 2018, surpasses diversity and inclusion, and reaches toward decolonization by helping develop critical Indigenous genomics to support Indigenous governance and land back projects. This talk touches on both the disciplinary/theoretical underpinnings and programmatic details of such training.

Kim TallBear, Professor, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society

Kim TallBear (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate) is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta. She is the author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science. Dr. TallBear is a regular panelist on the Media Indigena podcast and a regular media commentator on topics including Indigenous peoples, science, and technology; self-indigenization in the US and Canada; and Indigenous sexualities. You can follow her Substack newsletter, Unsettle: Indigenous affairs, cultural politics & (de)colonization at https://kimtallbear.substack.com.

Co-hosted by the UCSC Department of Biomolecular Engineering, the Genomics Institute, and the Science & Justice Research Center.

April 23, 2025 | TechnoScience Improv

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

12:15-2:00pm

Humanities 1, Room 210

This roundtable improv brings together ten UCSC scholars working on social, historical, and cultural studies of science, technology and medicine. The event will be structured around eight open, improvised conversations. Rather than structured around formal talks, each conversation will start with a question from a different panelist exploring emerging practices, speculative transformations, and critical imaginings of technoscience, health and ecology.

Convener:

Dimitris Papadopoulos

Participants:

Karen Barad is Distinguished Professor of Feminist Studies, Philosophy, and History of Consciousness.

James Doucet-Battle is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Co-Director of the Science & Justice Research Center.

Kat Gutierrez is an Assistant Professor in the History Department.

Dimitris Papadopoulos is Professor of History of Consciousness in the Department of History of Consciousness.

Maria Puig de la Bellacasa is Professor of History of Consciousness in the Department of History of Consciousness.

Jenny Reardon is a Professor of Sociology and the Founding Director of the Science & Justice Research Center.

Warren Sack is Professor of the Software Arts in the Film + Digital Media Department.

Kriti Sharma is an Assistant Professor of Critical Race Science and Technology Studies in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies.

Matt Sparke is Professor of Politics in the Politics Department and Co-Director of Global and Community Health.

Zac Zimmer is an Associate Professor of Literature in the Literature Department.

This talk is part of the earth ecologies x technoscience series in co-sponsorship with the History of Consciousness Department.

April 25, 2025 | Book Celebration: Unmaking Botany

Friday, April 25, 2025

11:00 am – 1:00 pm, reception to follow 

Location TBD

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Coastal Interactions (SEACoast) on Friday, April 25th, in celebration of S&J affiliate Kat Gutierrez’s forthcoming book Unmaking Botany.

Kat Gutierrez is an Assistant Professor of History at UC Santa Cruz and is interested broadly in the politics of botanical life and plant worldmaking in modern histories of the Philippines and Southeast Asia. Kat’s first book, titled Unmaking Botany: Science and Vernacular Knowledge in the Colonial Philippines (Duke University Press, March 2025), expands the “vernacular” in the history of colonial botany and examines practical and epistemological tensions in the Philippines during the science’s internationalist acceleration.

May 02, 2025 | BME80G Series: Mohammed Mostajo-Radji on Consciousness and Neuroethics: Exploring the Boundaries of Personhood and Research

Friday, May 02, 2025

1:20 – 2:25 pm 

J. Baskin Aud 101 (flyer)

On Friday, May 02 at 1:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Dr. Mohammed Mostajo-Radji.

A zoom option or recording may be available for members of the campus community who cannot attend in person. Contact Colleen Stone (colleen@ucsc.edu) to request access.

Consciousness and Neuroethics: Exploring the Boundaries of Personhood and Research

Ethics Consciousness remains one of the most profound and debated topics in neuroscience, philosophy, and bioethics. This presentation explores diverse perspectives on consciousness, from philosophical frameworks like dualism and monism to cutting-edge neuroscientific approaches using human brain organoids. As organoid research advances, ethical questions surrounding personhood, animal welfare, and the moral status of artificially grown neural structures become increasingly urgent. By examining case studies of human brain organoids, chimeric models, and neural restoration techniques, we will discuss the ethical challenges of defining consciousness and its implications for medical research, end-of-life care, and the future of neuroscience.

Dr. Mohammed Mostajo-Radji, Assistant Research Scientist, UCSC Genomics Institute.

Dr. Mohammed Mostajo-Radji is an Assistant Research Scientist at the UCSC Genomics Institute, where his is part of the Braingeneers group, a multidisciplinary collective of geneticists, neuroscientists, and engineers focused on the human brain specification and function. His research explores neuronal specification and fate plasticity in the cerebral cortex using brain organoid models. Additionally, he leads the Live Cell Biotechnology Discovery Lab, which develops cloud-based experimental science education technologies. Dr. Mostajo-Radji earned his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Harvard University and completed postdoctoral training at University of California San Francisco Department of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research.

Co-hosted by the UCSC Department of Biomolecular Engineering, the Genomics Institute, and the Science & Justice Research Center.

May 08, 2025 | Public Research Action Network: Stand Up for Science; Stand Up for Knowledge

Thursday, May 08, 2025

4:00 – 7:30 pm 

Coastal Science Building CBB110

Join the newly-created Public Research Action Network!

Building on the momentum from the highly successful Stand up for Science UCSC rallies held in March 2025, faculty are forming a group that will meet regularly with the slogan “Stand Up for Science; Stand Up for Knowledge”. The goal will be to keep up with the changing landscape regarding publicly-based research across all disciplines. The format is collaborative, with a plan for ~30-45 minutes of sharing some current events and updates, and ~45 minutes of action—oriented outreach plans including possibly letter and op-ed writing, working on communications to the UCSC Academic Senate and/or administrators, connecting with state and federal leaders, or other ideas to be crafted together. Meetings will take place once/month on the 2nd Thursday.

Parking at the Coastal Science Campus is available with no permits after 5pm.

May 08, 2025 | Nauenberg History of Science Lecture with Jessica Riskin

Thursday, May 08, 2025

5:00-7:00pm

Seymour Center, La Feliz Room

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) was the Professor of Insects and Worms at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Living through the storms of the French Revolution and Napoleonic period, he founded biology, coining the term to name a new science devoted to all and only living things, and authored the first theory of evolution. Lamarck’s science was foundational to modern biology, yet its radicalism – he usurped God’s monopoly on Creation and re-assigned it to mortal, living beings – brought him and his ideas plenty of trouble. During Lamarck’s lifetime, Napoleon and his scientific inner circle hated him and did what they could to undermine him. Charles Darwin then adopted central elements of Lamarck’s theory, but after Darwin’s death, his most influential followers re-interpreted his theory to eradicate all traces of Lamarckism, rendering organisms once again the passive objects of outside forces, allowing room for an omnipotent God working behind the scenes. This conception of living organisms as passive in the evolutionary process has remained dominant since the turn of the twentieth century. In contrast, in Lamarck’s theory, living beings were active, creative, self-making and world-making. Elements of this very different conception of living organisms have recently, gradually been returning to mainstream biology in fields such as niche construction and epigenetic inheritance. The lecture will present Lamarck’s radical, embattled, and perhaps re-emerging approach to living things, their evolutionary and ecological agency, and the science that studies them.

Jessica Riskin is Frances and Charles Field Professor of History at Stanford University where she teaches modern European history and the history of science. Her work examines the changing nature of scientific explanation, the relations of science, culture and politics, and the history of theories of life and mind. Her books include The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument over What Makes Living Things Tick\ (2016), which was awarded the 2021 Patrick Suppes Prize in the History of Science from the American Philosophical Society, and Science in the Age of Sensibility (2002), which received the American Historical Association’s J. Russell Major prize for best book in French history. She is a regular contributor to various publications including Aeon, the Los Angeles Review of Books and the New York Review of Books.