Principal Researchers

Professor Julian Savulescu (Director)
 
Julian Savulescu Julian Savulescu's areas of research include: the ethics of genetics, especially predictive genetic testing, pre implantation genetic diagnosis, prenatal testing, behavioural genetics, genetic enhancement, gene therapy; research ethics, especially ethics of embryo research, including embryonic stem cell research; new forms of reproduction, including cloning and assisted reproduction; medical ethics, including end of life decision-making, resource allocation, consent, confidentiality, decision-making involving incompetent people, and other areas; sports ethics; the analytic philosophical basis of practical ethics.  He is on the Advisory Board for the journal Neuroethics. Savulescu and Bostrom have initiated the two year EU ENHANCE project, an interdisciplinary project devoted to studying the ethical implications of human enhancement and to providing detailed recommendations to European policy makers. Oxford led the cognitive enhancement theme. Savulescu is editor of two major collections on human enhancement: one, co-edited with Bostrom, is forthcoming from OUP and another is in progress from the ENHANCE project. Savulescu and Liao are currently editing a special volume of The Journal of Applied Ethics on the ethics of enhancement.

Research leader in Cognitive Enhancement; Borderline Consciousness and Severe Neurological Impairment; Free Will, Moral Responsibility and Addiction; Neuroscience of Morality and Decision-Making; Applied Neuroethics.

Professor Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
 

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong Walter Sinnott-Armstrong has recently accepted a senior position at Duke University, having been Professor of Philosophy and Hardy Professor of Legal Studies at Dartmouth College, where he taught since 1981 after receiving a B.A. from Amherst College and a Ph.D. from Yale University. He is Vice-Chair of the Board of Officers of the American Philosophical Association and Co-director of the MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Program. He has published extensively on ethics (theoretical and applied), philosophy of law, epistemology, philosophy of religion, and informal logic. His current research focuses on empirical moral psychology as well as law and neuroscience. He is particularly interested in how moral intuitions work, whether moral judgments form a unified kind, whether the neuroscience of decision and action can improve on common views about moral and legal responsibility, and whether or when psychopaths and addicts are responsible.
 
Research Leader in Free Will, Moral Responsibility and Addiction.


Professor Neil Levy (Deputy Director - Research)

Neil Levy Neil Levy’s work ranges across the entire spectrum of neuroethics – unsurprisingly, since he has written a monograph on the topic (Neuroethics, Cambridge University Press 2007).  He has a special interest in the science of moral decision-making and in topics in free will and moral responsibility. He is currently engaged in empirical research testing the claim that some ethical intuitions are the product of heuristics triggered by irrelevant factors. Levy also has a background in continental philosophy and conducts research on the phenomenology of consciousness. He is the author of many papers on conceptual issues in free will and moral responsibility, as well as of papers on the psychological mechanisms involved in self-control and in addiction. He also works on issues in the scientific study of consciousness.  Neil Levy is editor in chief for the journal Neuroethics (Springer Publishing). Levy has published extensively in all 4 key areas. He organised Consciousness in the Vegetative State: Philosophical and Methodological Issues’(March 2008), a major conference that brought together leading neuroscientists, philosophers and ethicists to debate borderline states of consciousness.  He is a faculty member of the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne, and is part-funded by the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics.
 
Research Leader in Borderline Consciousness and Severe Neurological Impairment; Free Will, Moral Responsibility and Addiction; Neuroscience of Morality and Decision-Making.
Further Researcher in Applied Neuroethics.

 

Professor Barbara Sahakian

Barbara Sahakian

 

Barbara J Sahakian is Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine and Honorary Consultant Clinic Psychologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital. She has an international reputation in the fields of cognitive psychopharmacology, neuroethics, neuropsychology, neuropsychiatry and neuroimaging. She is particularly interested in the training of 21st century neuroscientists in neuroethics and in the engagement of the public in science. She is co-inventor of the CANTAB computerised neuropsychological tests, which are in use world-wide. She is probably best known for her research work on cognition and depression, cognitive enhancement using pharmacological treatments, neuroethics and early detection of Alzheimer's disease. Her current programme of research, funded by the Wellcome Trust and Medical Research Council, investigates the neurochemical modulation of impulsive and compulsive behaviour in neuropsychiatric disorders, such as unipolar and bipolar depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. She is also known for her work on cognitive enhancement and was co-author of a recent Nature paper on the use of enhancers by working scientists. Sahakian is a member of the editorial board of the American Journal of Bioethics – Neuroscience and a founding member of the Neuroethics Society. Professor Sahakian is a Fellow of Clare Hall and Bye-Fellow of Christ's College. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and has also been awarded the Distinguished Scholars Award for 2009 from the University of Pennsylvania. 

 

Research Leader in Cognitive Enhancement; Applied Neuroethics.

Professor Bill Fulford

Professor Bill Fulford

Bill (KWM) Fulford is Professor of Philosophy and Mental Health in the University of Warwick Medical School; Fellow of St Cross College; Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist and member of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford; Professor of Philosophy and Psychiatry and Co-Director of the Institute for Philosophy, Diversity and Mental Health at UCLan.  He has published very widely and influentially on the philosophy of psychiatry, including, most recently, co-authoring The Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry. He is Lead Editor for the Oxford book series International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry, and Founder and Co-editor with John Sadler of the international journal Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology (PPP).  He is also Special Adviser for Values-Based Practice in the Department of Health, London.
 
Research Leader in Borderline Consciousness and Severe Neurological Impairment; Free Will, Moral Responsibility and Addiction; Applied Neuroethics.
 
Professor Irene Tracey

Irene Tracey

Irene Tracey is the Nuffield Professor of Anaesthetic Science and Director of the Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB). She is a leading expert on using neuroimaging to study pain processing in the human brain. Until recently it has been difficult to obtain reliable objective information from normal subjects and patients regarding their subjective pain experience. Relating specific neurophysiologic markers to perceptual experiences induced by sensitisation, behavioural or pharmacological mechanisms and identifying their site of action within the Central Nervous System has been a major goal for scientists, clinicians, the pharmaceutical industry, and more recently society and the legal profession. With the advent of functional neuroimaging methods, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), positron emission tomography (PET) and electroencephalography (EEG) this has been made feasible. Over the past 10 years her multidisciplinary team of scientists and clinicians has contributed significantly to a better understanding of nociceptive processing in the human central nervous system in the non-injured and injured state, as well as modulation of pain perception via pharmacological and psychological interventions. They are considered one of the premier pain imaging groups worldwide.
The FMRIB Centre is a recognised world-class MR imaging laboratory that integrates research into key neurological and neuroscientific problems with cutting-edge developments in MR physics and data analysis. It is a 900m2 facility comprising approximately 90 scientists/clinical fellows and based at the John Radcliffe Hospital within the Department of Clinical Neurology. Areas of research within this facility include: MR Physics, Image Analysis, Pain, Plasticity in Disease, Language, Vision, Neurodegeneration, Cognition/Decision making, and in vivo Neuroanatomy. The research is largely MR-based but includes Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), direct cortical stimulation (tdCS), Electroencephalography (EEG) as well as combined EEG/FMRI. It recently secured £8.2 million to upgrade the imaging facilities in preparation for the next decade of advanced brain imaging research. Over the next 10 months it will install the UK’s second only 7 Tesla whole body MR scanner and a further whole body neuro-optimised 3 Tesla MR scanner. A key research focus of the OCN is to consider the impact of neuroimaging on our conception of human well-being, consciousness, free will, rationality and morality. Much neuroimaging has been successfully deployed to investigate medical diseases, disorders and normal sensory, emotional and cognitive processes. More recently, however, neuroimaging has been employed to investigate other aspects of human behaviour traditionally studied within social sciences. The OCN is one of the flagship centres in this regard.
Boundaries between disciplines have so far allowed only for limited interchange between ethics and neuroscience, with costs to both sides. For example, OCN researchers have identified significant flaws in previous neuroimaging research into morality or consciousness in the vegetative state. More importantly, current scientific and medical agenda might overlook important avenues for neuroscientific research that have important ethical and practical implications. The proposed project will be internationally unique in bringing together experts in neuroscience and applied ethics to pursue innovative neuroimaging research aimed at addressing key issues arising out of current debate in applied ethics. Here we will be building on an already highly successful collaboration between FMRIB and BEP researchers in several original pilot neuroimaging studies of belief, pain and moral decision-making. Key researchers driving these innovative programmes of research are Drs Katja Wiech (FMRIB & Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics), Guy Kahane and Nicholas Shackel. .

Research Leader in Neuroscience of Morality and Decision-Making.
Further Researcher in Applied Neuroethics.

Professor Nick Bostrom

 
Nick Bostrom Nick Bostrom is Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. He previously taught at Yale University in the Department of Philosophy and in the Yale Institute for Social and Policy Studies. Bostrom has a background in physics, computational neuroscience, and mathematical logic as well as analytic philosophy. Dr Bostrom is a leading thinker on big picture questions for humanity. His research also covers the foundations of probability theory, scientific methodology, human enhancement, global catastrophic risks, moral philosophy, and consequences of future technology. Bostrom developed the first mathematically explicit theory of observation selection effects. He is also the originator of the Simulation Argument, the Reversal Test, the concept of Existential Risk, and a number of other influential contributions. He serves occasionally as an expert consultant for various governmental agencies in the UK, Europe, and the USA, and he is a frequent commentator in the media.
 
Research Leader in Cognitive Enhancement .
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Dr Anne Aimola Davies
Anne Aimola Davies Dr Aimola Davies is a cognitive scientist and a clinical neuropsychologist, whose research interests are mainly in cognitive neuropsychology, specifically of visual selective attention. Drawing on the methods of cognitive psychology, cognitive neuropsychology, cognitive neuroscience, and clinical neuropsychology, her research includes work on the neuroanatomical basis of neglect and anosognosia; directional and non-directional aspects of attention; hemispheric specialisation for local and global processing; reference frames in object-centred neglect; visual awareness and implicit processing in neglect; the role of working memory impairments in anosognosia; neurorehabilitation.
 
Further Researcher in Applied Neuroethics.
 
Professor Alastair Buchan
 
Alastair BuchanAlastair Buchan is Chair of the Laboratory of Cerebral Ischeamia, based in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford. His main research interest has always been how to make neuroprotection a reality in the clinic. Using grant support from the CIHR, CSN & CSC, he has with Andrew Demchuk developed ASPECTS, with Michael Hill led the CASES study and he has recently completed the FASTER study with James Kennedy.
In Oxford, he has now been successful in obtaining funding from the MRC and the Dunhill Foundation to set up an Acute Stroke Programme in collaboration with Peter Jezzard and Peter Rothwell. He is the Translational Research Director for the UK Stroke Research Network. He led the Oxford University bid for a Wellcome Clinical Research facility and successfully obtained funding for the new Acute Vascular Imaging Centre.  He is also the Director for Biomedical Research Centre, one of the five comprehensive centres for the new English NIHR.
 
Further Researcher in Applied Neuroethics.

Dr Hilary Madder

Hilary Madder is a consultant at the Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics.

Research Leader in Borderline Consciousness and Severe Neurological Impairment.
Further Researcher in Applied Neuroethics.

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