Brain Pioneers: A Conversation with Sara Goering

In this seventh episode of our series on brain-computer interfaces, we are joined by Sara Goering. Dr. Goering is Professor of Philosophy, and Core Faculty for the Program on Ethics and the Disability Studies Program at the University of Washington. She co-leads the ethics thrust at the UW Center for Neurotechnology and also spends time discussing philosophy with children in the Seattle public schools, through the UW Center for Philosophy of Children. In this episode, we discuss several aspects of Dr. Goering’s wide-ranging work, including the medical versus social model of disability, the intersection of philosophy of disability and neuroethics, the importance of user-centered design in BCI research, the value of a ‘needs pull’ rather than ‘technology push’ approach to such research, the BCI Pioneers Coalition, privacy concerns and informed consent in the context of brain data, neurotechnology and the concept of relational agency, the extended mind and its connection to disability, and more topics.