While all technologies have societal and ethical implications, emerging technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence and genetic engineering) often pose unique ethical challenges.
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As advances are made in the fields of engineering, it is vital that issues of ethics be addressed with both students and professionals.
Dr. Joe Herkert, GES Center Visiting Scholar, was part of the National Academy of Engineering’s planning committee for a January 2017 workshop designed to “help identify institutional and cultural challenges to instilling ethics in engineering programs and to develop [sic] approaches to overcome those challenges.” Unfortunately, Dr. Herkert was unable to attend the workshop due to a fall on ice the day before!
Learn more about the NAE CEES Workshop“Engineering students are bound to encounter ethical dilemmas and issues in their professional lives. It’s important that they learn the ethical norms of the profession, how to recognize ethical dilemmas, and how to respond to such problems.”
Dr. Joe Herkert
The GES Center works to integrate scientific knowledge and public values in shaping the futures of biotechnology. Dr. Herkert serves as CoPI on the GES Cultivating Cultures for Ethical STEM (CCE) research project, now in its second year, which trains graduate students to conduct focus groups with stakeholders from the biotechnology and related sectors on ethical issues surrounding genetic engineering and its impact on society.
Dr. Herkert is a GES Center Visiting Scholar and former Lincoln Associate Professor of Ethics and Technology at Arizona State University and serves on the Center for Engineering Ethics and Society (CEES) Advisory Group of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).