Report
Judicial Seminars on Emerging Issues in Neuroscience
Who this is for:
AAAS and its collaborators have convened a series of seminars to inform judges of the issues they may encounter in light of new developments in neuroscience. Selected federal, state and administrative law judges have heard leading neuroscientists reflect on such topics as the neuroscience of violence and the brain, memory and lie detection, the adolescent brain, and states of consciousness.
This project to educate judges on advances in neuroscience has been supported by the Dana Foundation since 2006; thirty seminars have been convened. Partnering organizations include the Federal Judicial Center, the National Center for State Courts, and the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association.
In 2024, AAAS, with funding from the Dana Foundation, commissioned an independent evaluation of the Judicial Seminars on Emerging Issues in Neuroscience series over the past 18 years.
The evaluator, New Editions Consulting, Inc., administered an email survey to 451 administrative, federal, state, and tribal judges who had previously attended a seminar, and conducted a set of follow up interviews. In total, 84 judges responded to the survey and 5 participated in interviews.
The findings of the evaluation are published in this report.