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 Department of Disability Studies and the Center for Social Medicine. She is an NIH BRAIN Initiative and Dana Foundation funded researcher whose can be found in Neuron, Nature Human Behavior, AJOB Empirical Bioethics, AJOB Neuroscience, Neurosurgery, Journal of Medical Ethics, and Neuroethics.
She is the Ethics Theme Chair for undergraduate 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 and communication. 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 Medical Center Neurosurgery
Ausaf Bari, UCLA Neurosurgery
Nanthia Suthana, UCLA Psychiatry, Center for Neurotechnology
Eugene Caruso, UCLA Anderson School of Management
Helena Hansen, UCLA Psychiatry
Denese Shervington, CDU Psychiatry
Amy Woods, CDU Psychiatry
Gina Poe, UCLA Integrated Biology and Physiology
Felix Schweizer, UCLA Neurobiology, Brain Research Institute
Marco Iacoboni, UCLA Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Past Members
Ally Peabody Smith, PhD, Assistant Professor, TT, Lehigh University College of Health, former post doc
Lauren Herzog, MD, Neurology Residency, University of Pennsylvania
Michelle Pham, PhD, Assistant Professor, TT, in the Michigan State University Center for Bioethics and Social Justice, former post doc