Jason Scott Robert
Bioethics, Philosophy of the life sciences
Dr. Robert is the Franca Oreffice Dean's Distinguished Professor in the Life Sciences, and the Lincoln Associate Professor of Ethics in Biotechnology and Medicine, in SOLS. He conducts research and teaching at the intersection of bioethics and the philosophy of science. He has published extensively on ethical, conceptual, and methodological issues in developmental biology and evolution, and his current work focuses primarily on translational research in neuroscience. He is funded by the National Science Foundation and the James S. McDonnell Foundation to explore how neuroscientists do (and how they should) attempt to justify their research with non-human animals in the pursuit of findings relevant to humans. He is also interested in population and public health ethics, and in the social determinants of health.
Dr. Robert directs the Bioethics, Policy, and Law Program (BPL) in the Center for Biology and Society at ASU, administering the Biology MS and PhD concentrations in BPL, as well as the Biomedical and Health Ethics track of the new MA in Applied Ethics and the Professions. Dr. Robert is also Director of the Medicine and Society theme at The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University, responsible for teaching and mentoring in the domains of bioethics and medical humanities, and he serves as Director of Education for the Scholarly Project at the medical school.
Dr Robert is Associate Editor for public health ethics of the Canadian Journal of Public Health, a co-editor for Philosophy of Biology of the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, and a member of the editorial board of Biological Theory. He has served as program co-chair for the American Society for Bioethics + Humanities, and is active on several committees for the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology.
Some representative publications:
Book
Robert JS. Embryology, Epigenesis, and Evolution: Taking Development Seriously. New York: Cambridge University Press [2004]
Articles
Miller FA, Robert JS, Hayeems RZ. Questioning the Consensus: Managing Carrier Status Results Generated by Newborn Screening. American Journal of Public Health 99: 209-215 [2009]
Robert JS. The Comparative Biology of Human Nature. Philosophical Psychology 21: 425-436 [2008]
Robert JS. Taking Old Ideas Seriously: Evolution, Development, and Human Behavior. New Ideas in Psychology 26: 387-404 [2008]
Maienschein J, Sunderland M, Ankeny RA, Robert JS. The Ethos and Ethics of Translational Research [Target article with commentaries and response]. The American Journal of Bioethics 8.3: 43-51 and W1-W3 [2008]
Miller FA, Giacomini M, Robert JS, Christensen R. Duty to Disclose What? Querying the Putative Obligation to Return Research Results to Participants. Journal of Medical Ethics 34: 210-213 [2008]
Robert JS. Gene Maps, Brain Scans, and Psychiatric Nosology. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 16: 209-218 [2007]
Robert JS. Systems Bioethics. The American Journal of Bioethics 7.4: 80-82 [2007]
Giacomini M, Baylis F, Robert JS. Banking on It: Public Policy and the Ethics of Stem Cell Research and Development. Social Science & Medicine 65.7: 1490-1500 [2007]
Robert JS, Maienschein J, Laubichler M. Systems Bioethics and Stem Cell Biology. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 3.1-2: 19-31 [2006]
Robert JS. The Science and Ethics of Making Part-human Animals in Stem Cell Biology. FASEB Journal 20: 838-845 [2006]
Robert JS, Smith A. Toxic Ethics: Environmental Genomics and the Health of Populations. Bioethics 18: 493-514 [2004]
Robert JS. Constant Factors and Hedgeless Hedges: On Heuristics and Biases in Developmental Biology. Philosophy of Science 70: 975-988 [2003]
Robert JS. Interpreting the Homeobox: Metaphors of Gene Action and Activation in Development and Evolution. Evolution & Development 3: 287-295 [2001]
Robert JS. Schizophrenia Epigenesis? Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 21: 191-215 [2000]
Book chapters
Smith A, Robert JS. Conceptual and Normative Dimensions of Toxicogenomics. In Genomics and Environmental Regulation: Science, Ethics, and Law, eds. RR Sharp, GE Marchant, JA Grodsky (Johns Hopkins University Press), pp. 219-241 [2008]
Robert JS. Evo-devo. In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Biology, ed. M. Ruse (Oxford University Press), pp. 291-309 [2008]
Robert JS. Nanoscience, Nanoscientists, and Controversy. In Nanotechnology and Society: Current and Emerging Ethical Issues, eds. F. Allhoff and P. Lin (Springer), pp. 225-239 [2008]
Robert JS. Behavioural Genetics. In The Cambridge Textbook of Bioethics, ed. P.A. Singer (Cambridge University Press), pp. 174-182 [2008]
Robert JS. Molecular and Systems Biology and Bioethics. In The Cambridge Companion to Philosophy of Biology, eds. M. Ruse and D.L. Hull (Cambridge University Press), pp. 361-371 [2007]