The Program on Science and Human Rights

Mission Statement

The Program on Science and Human Rights has two core missions: first, to promote the production and dissemination of knowledge concerning the ethical and human rights implications of advances in the sciences, both past and present; and second, to bring together faculty and students from the natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences to examine the ethical and human rights implications of scientific research conducted at the University of Connecticut.

The Second Annual Heinz and Virginia Herrmann Distinguished Lecture on Human Rights and the Life Sciences

"The Genome, Eugenics, and Human Rights"
Dr. Daniel J. Kevles

Thursday April 3, 2008
at 4:00
Konover Auditorium
The Dodd Research Center
Reception to follow the lecture

Dr. Kevles is the Stanley Woodward Professor of History and Professor of History of Medicine, of American Studies, and of Law (adjunct), and Chair of the Program in the History of Medicine & Science at Yale University. He received his B.A. from Princeton University (Physics) in 1960, training at Oxford University (European History) from 1960-61, and his Ph.D. from Princeton (History) in 1964. His research interests include: the interplay of science and society past and present; the history of science in America; the history of modern physics; the history of modern biology, scientific fraud and misconduct; the history of intellectual property in living organisms; and the history of science, arms, and the state.

Dr. Kevles is the author or co-author of many books and articles including “In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity” which has been published in many countries, and “The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character” (W.W. Norton, 1998). His teaching areas are the history of modern science, including genetics, physics, and science in American society.

Sponsored by the Program on Science and Human Rights of The Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut.

Inaugural Events

Lectures on Human Dignity, Human Rights, and the Life Sciences

October 18, 2006
November 8, 2006
Konover Auditorium
Thomas J. Dodd Research Center

Co-sponsored by the Dodd Research Center

Open to the public and all students, staff, and faculty at the University of Connecticut.

Wednesday October 18, 2006
4:00pm
First Annual Heinz and Virginia Herrmann Lecture
on Human Rights and the Life Sciences

"Human Dignity - Trump Card and Troublemaker"
Dr. Karen Lebacqz
Emeritus Robert Gordon Sprout Professor of Theological Ethics, Pacific School of Religion, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA. Dr. Lebacqz is an internationally known bioethicist with special expertise in stem cell ethics. She has served as commissioner on the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research and is known as a co-author of the famous Belmont Report.
Reception Follows

Wednesday November 8. 2006
4:00pm

"Of Mice and Humans: Creating Human-Nonhuman Chimeras
in Stem Cell Research"
Dr. Cynthia Cohen
Faculty Affiliate at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University and Fellow of the Hastings Center. Dr. Cohen is a member of the Canadian Stem Cell Oversight Committee, former Executive Director of the National Advisory Board on Ethics in Reproduction, and former Chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Denver.
Reception Follows

Wednesday April 4, 2007
4:00 in the Konover Auditorium
Thomas J. Dodd Research Center

"Race and Science: New Challenges to an Old Problem"
Dr. Evelynn M. Hammonds
Dr. Hammonds is Professor of the History of Science and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University where she is also Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity. Her work has been featured nationally in the PBS documentary "Race: The Power of an Illusion".
Reception Follows

Program on Science and Human Rights
Executive Committee

Audrey R. Chapman Ph.D., Joseph M. Healey Endowed Chair,
Medical Humanities, Law, and Ethics; Department of Community Medicine and Health Care, University of Connecticut Health Center

Eleni Coundouriotis, Associate Director, Human Rights Institute and Associate Professor of English (ex officio member of the Executive Committee)

John Clausen, Professor of Natural Resources Management and Engineering

Francoise Dussart, Professor of Anthropology (Representative from the Gladstein Committee)

Ann Ferris, Co-Director, Center for Public Health and Health Policy and Professor of Nutritional Sciences

Martin Fox, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Larry Hightower, Associate Head and Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology

Anne L. Hiskes, Director, Program on Science and Human Rights and Associate Professor of Philosophy

Fotios Papadimitrakopoulos, Associate Director, Institute of Materials Sciences and Professor of Chemistry

Shirley Roe, Head and Professor of History

Susan Schmeiser, Associate Professor of Law, University of Connecticut

Linda Strausbaugh, Director, Center for Applied Genetics and Technology and
Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology

Program on Science and Human Rights
Director

Anne L. Hiskes
Associate Professor of Philosophy
(860) 486-2215; 486-3676
Anne.Hiskes@uconn.edu

Anne L. Hiskes is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of Research Ethics and Education for Stem Cell Research at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University and has been a Fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests and papers focus on the relations between scientific inquiry and “extra-scientific” factors such as ethics, politics, gender, religion, and aesthetics. She teaches courses on bioethics and human rights, research ethics, and philosophy of science, and is currently conducting research on the interactions between stem cell research, concepts of human dignity, and human rights.

Mission
Statement

Inaugural
Events

Executive
Committee

Director

Heinz and Virginia Herrmann Lecture Series

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