Ashley Feinsinger, PhD
Principal Investigator
Dr. Ashley Feinsinger is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and affiliated faculty in the Center for Social Medicine and the Brain Research Institute. She is an NIH and Dana Foundation funded researcher whose work can be found in Neuron, Nature Human Behavior, Hastings Center Report, AJOB Neuroscience, Neurosurgery, Journal of Medical Ethics, and Neuroethics.
She is the Ethics Theme Chair for medical education at DGSOM and Co-Director the UCLA-CDU Dana Center for Neuroscience and Society, which you can learn about here.
She received her Ph.D. and M.A. in philosophy from UCLA, specializing in philosophy of language. In 2019, she completed the Advanced Training in Healthcare Ethics program at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and in 2021, she completed the Medical Education Fellowship: Innovations in Curriculum Design and Evaluation at DGSOM.
Lilyana Levy, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar
Lilyana is a postdoctoral scholar in the department of Medicine at UCLA. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Emory University in 2021, her M.A. in Philosophy from Emory University in 2016, and her B.A. in Philosophy from Vassar College in 2011. Her dissertation, “Contested Illness and Embodied Knowing: On Medical Gaslighting as Epistemic Injustice” foregrounds patient perspectives on medical error, diagnostic delay and illness dismissal to give an account of medical gaslighting as a systemic and pervasive form of epistemic injustice. As a postdoc, her work focuses on the research ethics of brain computer interfaces (BCI), specifically visual cortical prostheses (VCP). Outside of the lab, Lilyana can be found hiking on the many wonderful trails in Southern California, doting on her two cats, or experimenting in the kitchen.
Colleen Hanson, BA
Graduate Student
Colleen is a philosophy Ph.D student at University of California, Los Angeles. Her current work focuses on the metaphysics of pregnancy, and she has broader interests in bioethics and feminist philosophy. Before heading to UCLA, she received her BA in philosophy with an interdisciplinary emphasis in bioethics from University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA. While there, she interned as a bioethicist at Tacoma General Hospital. She also currently works on the medical ethics curriculum, developing sessions for first and second year medical students.
Current Collaborators
Nader Pouratian, UT Southwestern
Nanthia Suthana, Duke
Ueli Rutishauser, California Institute of Technology
Jen Collinger, University of Pittsburgh
Jen French, Neurotech Network
Agatha Lenartowicz, UCLA
Ausaf Bari, UCLA
Helena Hansen, UCLA
Denese Shervington, CDU
Amy Woods, CDU
Gina Poe, UCLA
Felix Schweizer, UCLA
Marco Iacoboni, UCLA
Eugene Caruso, UCLA Anderson School of Management
Past Members
Ally Peabody Smith, PhD, former post doc, current position: Assistant Professor, TT, Lehigh University College of Health
Lauren Herzog, MD, formed medical student, current position: Neurology Residency, University of Pennsylvania
Michelle Pham, PhD, former post doc, current position: Assistant Professor, TT, in the Michigan State University Center for Bioethics and Social Justice