Organizing Committee

Sung-Jin Jeong is a principal Researcher at the Korea Brain Research Institute. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Seoul National University, and then worked as a Research Fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital for seven years. She then worked as a Research Fellow and Staff Scientist at Children’s Hospital Boston, before joining the Korea Brain Research Institute in 2013. Dr. Jeong recently published an article in Neuron, describing the history and goals of the Korean Brain Initiative. This initiative is centered on deciphering the brain functions and mechanisms that underlie decision-making, and the major goal is to map a functional connectome of the brain. The project also encourages the development of novel techniques and technologies, and should ultimately have socioeconomic ramifications that facilitate global collaboration across the world.

Dr. Khara Ramos serves as Director, Neuroethics Program, and Health Scientist Administrator in the Office of Scientific Liaison (OSL), at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) at NIH. She leads efforts to integrate neuroethics into the NIH BRAIN Initiative, and serves as Executive Secretary of the Neuroethics Working Group of the NIH BRAIN Multi-Council Working Group and co-lead of the trans-NIH BRAIN neuroethics project team. In her role within OSL she works to support a seamless flow of information on NINDS-supported research advances and initiatives to various stakeholders including scientific and academic communities, as well as policy-makers, patients, and the public

Previously, Dr. Ramos worked as Special Assistant to the Deputy Director of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), where she served as point person on high profile projects for NIDCR and provided support to the NIDCR Office of the Director regarding policy analysis, communications, program oversight, evaluation activities, strategic planning, and project coordination. She originally moved from academia to federal service via the AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship Program, following a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she studied the role of non-neuronal cells of the central nervous system in chronic pain states and in opioid-induced central sensitization. Dr. Ramos holds a Ph.D. in neurosciences from the University of California, San Diego, and a bachelor’s degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University.

Dr. Karen S. Rommelfanger is a neurotech ethicist and strategist. She received her PhD in neuroscience and received postdoctoral training in neuroscience and neuroethics. Her lab, the Neuroethics and Neurotech Innovation Collaboratory explores how evolving neuroscience and neurotechnologies challenge societal definitions of disease and medicine, cross-cultural neuroethics, and cross-sectoral neuroethics implementation. Dr. Rommelfanger is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, the Neuroethics Program Director at Emory University’s Center for Ethics, and Senior Associate Editor at the American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience and on the first neuroethicist to be called to the editorial advisory board of Neuron. She is dedicated to cross-cultural work in neuroethics serving as ethicist to the China-India Mental Health Alliance and is co-chair of the Global Neuroethics Workgroup of the International Brain Initiative. She is an appointed member to the NIH BRAIN Initiative Neuroethics Working Group and served as ambassador to the EU Human Brain Project’s Ethics Advisory Board. As a Neuroethics Subgroup member of the Advisory Committee to the Director at NIH, she helped design a neuroethics roadmap for BRAIN 2025. She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Disruptive Technology for Mental Health. A key part of her work is fostering communication and engagement across multiple stakeholders in neuroscience. Facilitating community conversations, she edits the largest international online neuroethics discussion forum The Neuroethics Blog and she is a frequent contributor and commentator in popular media such as The New York Times, NPR, and The Huffington Post.

Lab URL: https://neuroethicslab.com

University URL: https://ethics.emory.edu/who-we-are/our-people/faculty/core/rommelfanger-karen.html

Dr. Sadato is a professor of National Institute for Physiological Sciences in Japan since 1999. After trained as a diagnostic radiologist, he entered into the functional neuroimaging field in 1990. Dr Sadato is interested in understanding the mechanisms of plastic change in the human brain accompanied by learning, sensory deprivation, and development explored by functional MRI. Recently he focuses on the development of social cognition and its correlates. Dr. Sadato has been the chair of the Ethics Committee of The Japan Neuroscience Society since 2008.

Dr. Arleen Salles  is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Research Ethics and Bioethics, Uppsala University, Sweden, and task leader and research collaborator in the Ethics and Society subproject (SP12) of the EU-flagship Human Brain Project. She is the Director of the Neuroethics Program at Centro de Investigaciones Filosoficas in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and member of the organizing committee of the Global Neuroethics Summit series.  She works on a wide range of neuroethical topics, from the nature of the field and the development of a culturally aware neuroethics, to conceptual issues in neurosurgery for psychiatric disorders, neuroimaging and privacy concerns, and ethical and conceptual issues in artificial intelligence. She is currently working on a conceptual analysis of human identity and the self, and the debate over the potential impact of neurotechnologies on human nature.

For more information: http://www.crb.uu.se/staff/arleen-salles/

Tamami Fukushi is a visiting researcher at Division of Cerebral Integration in Department of System Neuroscience, National Institute of Physiological Sciences (NIPS). She graduated Nara Women’s University (Physical Education) and Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University (Primatology) then took Ph.D. in Behavioral Science at Department of Psychology, Hokkaido University in March 1999. Defended thesis in the field of neuroscience on an experimental investigation of neural function of non-human primate frontal cortex during visually guided isometric force production task. From 1999 to 2005, she worked for Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota as Postdoctoral/Research Associate for motor control research focusing on human and non-human primates.

She started career in Neuroethics in 2005 when she moved back to Japan at the Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society (RISTEX), Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) as a researcher of cohort project called “Japan Children’s Study Group”. She organized the first international symposium of neuroethics in Asian region in July 2006 in Tokyo, and contributed to a dissemination of neuroethics to Japanese and Asian stakeholders. After closing the cohort project in 2009, she experienced science policy at Center for Research and development Strategies (CRDS) in JST and regulatory science at Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA). During those years, she extended her career to science policy making and international cooperation policy in life science and medicines. In June 2017, she joined Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) as policy and information analyst and rebooted Neuroethics activity as a visiting researcher in NIPS from June 2020.

Her current interest of neuroethics is ELSI of advanced technology of neuroscience in the context of science policy and regulatory science. In 2015 She published a book chapter entitled “Social Implementation of Neurodegenerative Disease Research and Neuroethics” In: Wada, K., (ed.) Neurodegenerative Disorders as Systemic Diseases. Pp.295-304, Springer and “Neuroethics in Japan” In: Johnson, L.S.M. and Rommelfanger, K., (eds.) Handbooks in Neuroethics. Routledge Pp.442-456.