Shen Lab: Law, Ethics, Neuroscience & Artificial Intelligence

Brain science is an incredibly promising, and ever-evolving, field. Advances in neuroscience and AI could revolutionize both medicine and law, allowing us to reverse dementia; prevent addiction; reduce interpersonal violence; detect lies; and much more.

And yet, all scientific and technological advances introduce ethical and legal issues. How can we ensure the equitable distribution of novel technologies? What do brain science researchers owe to their participants? How can the legal system utilize AI and neuroscience effectively?

The Shen Lab works at those points of intersection. The lab’s research identifies and addresses the ethical, legal, and social implications of advances in neurotechnology and AI, along the complex path from lab to law. The Shen Lab moved to the Center from the University of Minnesota in 2022.

For more details, please visit the Shen Lab website. To contact the lab, email Francis_Shen@hms.harvard.edu.

Publications, Events, and Grants

• "Intimate Data: Ensuring Equity as Psychiatry Embraces Boundless Data and AI," Harvard Radcliffe Institute Seminar, May 2022
• Bridge2AI Grant, NIH Common Fund

Francis X. Shen, JD, PhD

Francis X. Shen, JD, PhD, is a Member of the HMS Center for Bioethics, and a Member of the Faculty in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, a Lecturer on Psychology in the  Department of Psychiatry at Mass General Hospital, and a Harvard University Affiliated Professor at Harvard Law School.

Previously, Dr. Shen was a Professor of Law, McKnight Presidential Fellow, and faculty member in the Graduate Program in Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota. He is also a faculty member and past Executive Director of the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior (CLBB) at MGH, and serves as the Executive Director of Education and Outreach for the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience. In fall 2020 he was a Florence Rogatz Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School, where he co-taught Criminal Law with Judge (Ret.) Nancy Gertner. He served as a member of the Neuroethics Subgroup of the National Institutes of Health Advisory Committee to the Director BRAIN Initiative Working Group, and speaks nationally and internationally about the emerging intersection of neuroscience and law.

Dr. Shen directs the Shen Lab: Law, Ethics, Neuroscience & Artificial Intelligence, whose Lab motto is, “Every story is a brain story.” He conducts empirical and legal research at the intersection of law, ethics, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. He has co-authored 3 books, including the first Law and Neuroscience casebook (Aspen), and published articles on a range of neurolaw and neuroethics topics, including computational phenotyping, portable neuroimaging, memory and lie detection, cognitive enhancement, criminal justice, brain injury, evidentiary admissibility, sports concussion, juror decision-making, criminal mental states, dementia, and mental health. With co-PIs Susan Wolf and Frances Lawrenz at the University of Minnesota and a national working group, Dr. Shen is leading an NIH BRAIN RF1 project on Highly Portable and Cloud-Enabled Neuroimaging Research: Confronting Ethics Challenges in Field Research with New Populations. In 2021, he was awarded the Early Career Scholars Medal by the American Law Institute, one of two medals awarded every other year by the ALI, for being “a pioneer in establishing the interdisciplinary field of law and neuroscience.” He received his BA from the University of Chicago, his JD from Harvard Law School, and his PhD from the Harvard Government Department and Harvard Kennedy School Program on Social Policy.

Kelisha "Key" Williams

Kelisha "Key" Williams is a Harvard College Undergraduate in her sophomore year. She is working towards her BA in Psychology on the Cognitive Science Honors track with a Computer Science minor. She is actively involved in multiple organizations across campus including the Harvard Undergraduate Law Review and The Harvard Crimson. She fulfills leadership positions in both being Director of Technology at the Law Review and Comp Editor for The Harvard Crimson. Key hopes to begin law school after earning her BA and pursue criminal law. She is most interested in becoming a prosecuting attorney and upholding legal and moral ethics following the intersection between rising AI technology and the psychology of courtrooms. Key joined the Shen Lab as a Research Assistant.