New Kavli Center at UC Berkeley to foster ethics, engagement in science

The new Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public at UC Berkeley will equip the next generation of scientists with the tools to tackle the ethical and societal implications of their research while inventing innovative ways to involve the public. (UC Berkeley image by Neil Freese) Every day, algorithms select which news stories appear in our social media feeds. Airplanes allow global travel at nearly the speed of sound while emitting greenhouse gases that accelerate the impacts of climate change. And recent advances in DNA sequencing and editing enable us to understand our fundamental genetic programming - and potentially change it. While it may be challenging to anticipate where science might lead us next, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are taking steps to ensure that the public has a greater say in future scientific advances, and that questions of ethics and social equity take a prominent role in scientific decision-making. Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public , which, alongside a second center at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, will connect scientists, ethicists, social scientists, science communicators and the public in necessary and intentional discussions about the potential impacts of scientific discoveries. Stuart Russell, professor of computer science and the Smith-Zadeh Professor in Engineering, will direct the new center.