Embedded Ethics

At Georgetown University, I have led collaboration with science faculties to integrate ethics into their curricula, including by: (i) developing and running tailored programs for individual courses, (ii) hosting faculty workshops to offer guidance, and (iii) serving in a program committee for a newly launched interdisciplinary B.S. degree.

Course Programs

I have delivered tailored embedded ethics program for the following courses. Lecture slides and worksheets are available upon request.

Fall 2024: COSC4850 Intro to Human-Centered Computer Science (Instructor: Dr. Elissa M. Redmiles)

This is an advanced-level BA course in Computer Science for both BA majors and MA students. For the mid-term project, students are identifying a problem in the healthcare industry and proposing a design solution (e.g., designing or redesigning technology) to address the problem. As the ethics instructor, I invite students to examine the impacts of their proposed design on different stakeholders (including and beyond intended users) and identify value conflicts or trade-offs that emerge from their design decisions. My involvement in the course includes two guest lectures, prompt design, and a guest critique of student work.

Spring 2024: ENST3360 Environmental Remote Sensing and Geospatial Analysis (Instructor: Dr. Taylor Jones)

This is a BA course in Environmental Science. For the final project, students used publicly available remote sensing data to propose a research project on a local, regional, or global environmental problem. As the ethics instructor, I invited students to consider ethical issues and challenges arising from different stages of their proposed research as well as its potential societal impacts. I further prompted them to reflect on the difficulties of anticipating broader impacts of their research and ways to responsibly mitigate these uncertainties. My involvement in the course included two guest lectures, prompt design, and a guest critique of student work.

Collaboration with the Earth Commons Institute

In the academic year 2023-2024, I was part of the steering team at the Ethics Lab collaborating with the Earth Commons Institute at Georgetown University to launch a joint interdisciplinary B.S. degree in Environmental Science and Sustainability (JESP).

Program Commitee: I was part of the program committee developing the core learning program for the new degree, as well as designing and teaching the new foundational ethics course for the degree.

Faculty Workshops: We also ran the following faculty workshops to the faculty members at the Earth Commons Institute to offer guidance on integrating ethics into their courses.

Fall 2023: Weaving Ethics into the JESP curriculum
Spring 2024: Ethics in Science, Science in Ethics

Here is a summary of our collaboration with the Earth Common Institute during the academic year 2023-2024.