New Directions in Environmental Ethics: Interdisciplinary and Public Engagement with Emerging Contaminants and Technologies

该奖项为科学、技术和社会领域的博士生和博士后研究员的跨学科培训计划提供资金，该计划将产生和传播新的伦理工具，以负责任和对公众负责的方式处理新兴污染物和新兴技术。新出现的污染物是指对健康和环境影响了解有限，但在环境中普遍存在的化学品。例子包括多溴二苯醚阻燃剂和双酚A。新兴技术旨在改善人类生计，但对人类健康、环境或社会的影响往往不清楚。例如纳米技术、生物修复技术和合成基因组学。由于人们对这些产品的影响知之甚少，而且这些产品有时会在投入使用时发生变化，因此需要新的道德参与形式。该奖项将产生新的伦理工具来处理这些类型的技术和化学品，并培训研究生和博士后使用这些新工具。首席研究员将创建一个“反身性研究伦理”理论，该理论借鉴了STS关于健康、社会运动、公众参与科学和伦理学的理论。通过课程作业、与STS教员的指导关系、参加一系列特别研讨会，以及与社区团体和科学家合作，学员将学习反身性研究伦理。这种研究伦理学的理论和实践利用了关于如何让不同领域的公众和科学家参与关于其影响不是众所周知但具有潜在危险的科学产品的复杂决策的学术知识。它还为解决新兴科学产品和技术带来的复杂伦理问题提供了新的方法。培训和研究将有助于加强关于科学伦理的跨学科和公开讨论。该奖项的更广泛影响包括：产生了新的伦理工具，其他研究人员可以使用这些工具以创新的方式执行NSF负责任的研究培训要求；通过社区合作伙伴和学生之间的相互学习让社区团体参与进来；以及出版学生和导师项目。

This award funds an interdisciplinary training program for doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows in Science, Technology, and Society that will generate and communicate new ethics tools for handling emerging contaminants and emerging technologies in a responsible and publicly accountable fashion. Emerging contaminants are chemicals for which there is limited knowledge of health and evironmental effects, yet which are prevalent in the environment. Examples include PBDE flame retardants and bisphenol A. Emerging technologies are designed to advance human livelihood, but have implications for human health, the environment, or society that are often unclear. Examples include nanotechnology, bioremediation technologies, and synthetic genomics. Because so little is known about the effects of these products, and because these products sometimes change as they are put into use, new forms of ethical engagement are required. This award will generate new ethical tools to handle these types of technologies and chemicals, and train graduate students and postdoctoral students to use these new tools. The principal investigator will create a theory of "reflexive research ethics" that draws on STS theories of health social movements, public engagement in science, and ethics. Through coursework, mentoring relationships with STS faculty, participation in a special seminar series, and work with community groups and scientists, trainees will learn reflexive research ethics. This theory and practice of research ethics makes use of scholarship on how to engage publics and scientists in varied fields in complex decisions about scientific products whose effects are not well known but which are potentially dangerous. It also provides new methods for addressing complex ethical issues raised by emerging scientific products and technologies. Training and research will help strengthen cross-disciplinary and public discussions of science ethics. The broader impacts of this award include the generation new ethics tools that can be used by other researchers to carry out NSF's Responsible Conduct of Research training requirement in innovative ways; the engagement of community groups through mutual learning between community partners and students; and the publication of student and mentor projects.