Biography

Emily R. Murphy is a fellow in the Stanford Law School Center for Law and Biosciences and research fellow on the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project based at University of California, Santa Barbara.

Murphy’s current research focuses on issues surrounding the application of neuroscience and neuroimaging technology in criminal and civil law, the effect of neuroimaging evidence on individual concepts of agency, and designing hypothesis-driven neuroimaging work that can directly inform legal or policy-based challenges. Murphy graduated in 2003 from Harvard University and completed her doctoral work in 2007 in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge while on a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. Her doctoral research examined the neural and neurochemical basis of impulsivity and behavioral flexibility.

Publications

• Author of “The neuroethics of punishment” in American Journal of Bioethics-Neuroscience (in review)
• Co-author of “The Lawful Brain” (in progress)
• Co-author of “Behavioural pharmacology: 40+ years of progress, with a focus on glutamate receptors and cognition,” Trends in Pharmacological Science 27(3); and “Nucleus accumbens D2 receptors predict trait impulsivity and cocaine reinforcement,” Science 315(5816)

Field of Interest/Expertise

• Behavioral Neuroscience, Neuroimaging Technology, Decisionmaking, Addiction, Criminal Responsibility, Scientific Evidence, Neuroethics, Biomedical Ethics.

In the News

• Would-Be Rhodes Scholars Make Do As Gates Scholars
  Bloomberg.com, May 01, 2008