Dr Tara Mahfoud
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Email
tara.mahfoud@essex.ac.uk -
Telephone
+44 (0) 1206 872663
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Location
5A.336, Colchester Campus
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Academic support hours
by appointment
Profile
Biography
Tara Mahfoud is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology. Before joining the University of Essex, she was a Research Associate in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at King’s College London and a Visiting Research Fellow in the Science, Technology and Society programme at Harvard University. Additionally, she serves as Co-Convenor of the British Sociological Association’s Science and Technology Studies Study Group, and is Associate Editor of the journal Interdisciplinary Science Reviews. Trained in sociology and anthropology, Tara's research explores the cultural, social, and political contexts and implications of developments in the neurosciences. Her work has been published in leading international journals including Media and Society, Science Technology & Human Values, the Journal of Responsible Innovation, and Issues in Science and Technology.
Qualifications
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PhD King's College London,
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MA School of Oriental and African Studies,
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BA American University of Beirut,
Appointments
University of Essex
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First Year Undergraduate Director, Sociology, University of Essex (1/1/2023 - present)
Research and professional activities
Research interests
Science and Technology Studies
Neuroscience and Society
Dual Use
Responsible Research and Innovation
Medical Anthropology
Conferences and presentations
A-Models: A-Model: Model Assemblages, A-Contextual Data, and Organism Agnosticism
Invited presentation, Science, Technology and Innovation Studies Seminar Series, Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 14/11/2022
Laboratories of Friendliness: An Ethnography of the Human Brain Project
Invited presentation, Studying Elites: challenges, opportunities & progressive potential, Studying Elites: challenges, opportunities & progressive potential, London, 9/6/2022
The Biological Imitation Game; Or the Sublime Similarity of Brain Simulation.
Critical Borders: Radical (Re)visions of AI Conference, University of Cambridge, 18/10/2021
Multiple Roles, Identities & Perceptions of ‘Ethics & Society’ in the Human Brain Project
Society for the Social Studies of Science Annual Conference, 6/10/2021
Visions of Unification and Integration: Building Brains and Communities in the European Human Brain.
British Sociological Association Annual Meeting, 13/4/2021
Visions of Unification and Integration: Building Brains and Communities in the European Human Brain.
Invited presentation, Culture, Mind and Brain Seminar Series, McGill University, 18/3/2021
Between Open Science and Security: Mitigating Dual-Use in European Digital Neuroscience Infrastructure.
Making Europe through Infrastructures of (in)security Workshop, Vienna, Austria, 13/11/2020
Formal and Informal Infrastructures of Collaboration in the EU’s Human Brain Project.
EASST/4S 2020 Conference, 20/8/2020
Formal and Informal Infrastructures of Collaboration in the EU’s Human Brain Project.
International Workshop, From multidisciplinary collaborations to interdisciplinary communities., London, United Kingdom, 16/1/2020
The Biological Imitation Game; Or the sublime similarity of brain simulation.
Invited presentation, Seminar, Neurological Imaginaries Seminar Series, Toronto, Canada, 8/11/2019
Blue Skies and Glimmering Stars: Visions of the Human Brain Project.
Invited presentation, Seminar, Fellows Meeting, Cambridge, United States, 22/10/2019
Agonistic Friendship in Interdisciplinary Engagements.
Conference, Science in Public, Manchester, United Kingdom, 10/7/2019
On Friendship: Reflections on Reflexivity in Responsible Research and Innovation.
Conference, Science in Public, Cardiff, United Kingdom, 19/12/2018
“Data Communities: the politics of unification and integration in European neuroscience.
Conference, 117th Annual Meeting, San Jose, United States, 16/11/2018
Big Data and Machine Learning for Neuro-Diagnostics: Opportunities and Challenges for Clinical Translation"
Conference, Science, Technology and Innovation Studies: Critical Inquiries in Theory and Practice, Manchester, United Kingdom, 9/9/2018
Visions of Unification and Integration: an ethnography of the European Human Brain Project.
Conference, European Association for the Study of Science and Technology, Lancaster, United Kingdom, 26/7/2018
A-Model: Simulation, Neuroinformatics, and Classification in the Neurosciences.
Invited presentation, Workshop, Laboratories of health: human and non-human subjects, London, United Kingdom, 1/6/2018
On Oliver Sacks’s Awakenings as Ethnography.
Invited presentation, Workshop, Neurovision, London, United Kingdom, 1/5/2018
The complex and conflicted ethics of collaboration.
Keynote presentation, Conference, Transdisciplinary Research Linking Neuroscience, Brain Medicine and Computer Science., Vienna, Austria, 9/2/2017
For model’s sake! Curation, Integration, and Strategic Data Collection in the European Human Brain Project
Conference, 115th Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, United States, 16/11/2016
Blue Seas and Glimmering Stars: Visions of the Human Brain Project.
Workshop, Research, Reverie & The Wandering Imagination., Cambridge, United Kingdom, 6/9/2016
Spurious Categories: A study of data-model symbiosis in the Human Brain Project
Conference, Lives and Deaths of Data, Barcelona, Spain, 2/9/2016
Belief, Time and ‘Big Neuroscience’: Negotiating what to model in the European Human Brain Project
Workshop, Vital Brains: The Making and Use of Models in Neuroscience, Berlin, Germany, 7/4/2016
Teaching and supervision
Current teaching responsibilities
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The Sociological Imagination (SC111)
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Psychiatry and Mental Illness (SC326)
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Researching Social Life (SC101)
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Career Development and Making a Difference (SC199)
Publications
Journal articles (6)
Aicardi, C. and Mahfoud, T., (2024). Formal and Informal Infrastructures of Collaboration in the Human Brain Project. Science, Technology and Human Values. 49 (2), 403-430
Ulnicane, I., Mahfoud, T. and Salles, A., (2023). Experimentation, learning, and dialogue: an RRI-inspired approach to dual-use of concern. Journal of Responsible Innovation. 10 (1), 1-18
Datta Burton, S., Mahfoud, T., Aicardi, C. and Rose, N., (2021). Clinical translation of computational brain models: understanding the salience of trust in clinician-researcher relationships.. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews. 46 (1-2), 138-157
Mahfoud, T., (2021). Visions of Unification and Integration: Building Brains and Communities in the European Human Brain Project. New Media and Society. 23 (2), 322-343
Mahfoud, T., Aicardi, C., Datta, S. and Rose, N., (2018). The Limits of Dual Use. Issues in Science and Technology. 34 (4)
Mahfoud, T., (2014). Extending the mind: a review of ethnographies of neuroscience practice. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 8 (JUNE)
Books (1)
Mahfoud, T., McLean, S. and Rose, N., (2017). Vital Models The Making and Use of Models in the Brain Sciences. Academic Press. 0128125586. 9780128125588
Book chapters (1)
Mahfoud, T., McLean, S. and Rose, N., (2017). Preface. In: Progress in Brain Research. Elsevier. xi- xx
Conferences (1)
Datta Burton, S., Aicardi, C., Mahfoud, T. and Rose, N., (2018). Understanding Interstate Competitiveness and International Security in European Dual-Use Research
Reports and Papers (4)
Bitsch, L., Salles, A., Evers, K., Changeux, J-P., Stahl, B., Aicardi, C., Burton Datta, S., Mahfoud, T., Reinsborough, M., Rose, N., Klüver, L., Ladegaard, SF., Alves, E., Nordfalk, F., Bådum, N., Eke, D., Knight, W., Grasenick, K., Romero, PF., Ulnicane, I., Rosemann, A., Ogoh, G., Matar, A., Fernow, J., Bringedal, B., Christen, M., Domingo-Ferrer, J., von Schomberg, R., Illes, J. and Rommelfanger, K., (2023). Ethics and Society in Brain Research: Implementing Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in the Human Brain Project (HBP)
Mahfoud, T., Aicardi, C., Bitsch, L., Datta Burton, S., Evers, K., Farisco, M., Rose, N., Rosemann, A., Salles, A., Stahl, B. and Ulnicane, I., (2021). Opinion on Trust and Transparency in Artificial Intelligence.
Aicardi, C., Datta Burton, S., Mahfoud, T. and Rose, N., (2019). Machine Learning and Big Data for Neuro-Diagnostics: Opportunities and Challenges for Clinical Translation
Aicardi, C., Bitsch, L., Bådum, NB., Datta, S., Evers, K., Farisco, M., Fothergill, T., Giordano, J., Harris, E., Jørgensen, ML., Klüver, L., Mahfoud, T., Rainey, S., Riisgaard, K., Rose, N., Salles, A., Stahl, B. and Ulnicane, I., (2018). Opinion on ‘Responsible Dual Use’: Political, Security, Intelligence and Military Research of Concern in Neuroscience and Neurotechnology
Other (5)
Fletcher, JR., Cavaliere, G., Ermansons, G., Fonseca, S., Green, C., Mahfoud, T., Maun, E., McLean, S., Wynne Bannister, E. and Tinker, A., (2020).Capacity building in practice: how involving early career researchers in research awards can contribute to their development. Social Research Practice(9),Social Research Association
Mahfoud, T., Bowen, S., Ermansons, G., McLean, S. and Quinton, P., (2020).Memory / Habit / Addiction: Workshop Report by the Neuroscience and Society Network,Somatosphere
Pokorny, J., De Meyer, K., Haueis, P., Mahfoud, T. and McLean, S., (2018).The Mercurial Life of Drugs: Psychedelics as models, risk factors, and treatments for mental disorders. Somatosphere
Mahfoud, T., (2017).Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us / a conversation with Lochlann Jain. Somatosphere
Mahfoud, T. and McLean, S., (2015).Towards Neuro-Social Science: The Politics and Pragmatics of Collaboration.. Somatosphere
Contact
Academic support hours:
by appointment
