Month: September 2018

National Institutes of Health – Bethesda, Maryland

For my PILF-funded summer internship, I served as a special volunteer in Neuroethics with the BRAIN Initiative, a multi-institute, multi-billion-dollar project with the vision of mapping brain function and developing novel neuroimaging and neuromodulation technologies. This exciting initiative involves hundreds of physicians, scientists, and researchers across the country, and as part of its foresight concerning brain technologies, its leadership have accentuated Neuroethics from the start. Over the past 5 years, BRAIN Neuroethics has held many Working Groups and developed a framework of Guiding Principles for grant-giving bodies and researchers alike to use in analyzing new projects and technologies. However, these principles are distilled down to foundational ideas, and their application therefore depends on research into the ethical implications and capabilities of these projects.

While my internship gave me innumerable opportunities to learn about the function of the BRAIN Initiative and the NIH in general, my contribution was centered around applying these foundational ideas across BRAIN Initiative technologies. My focus was on data sharing and privacy, which is relevant not only as an important aspect of research ethics but has been part of a growing ethical discussion about the future of communication and technology. Under the guidance of Dr. Khara Ramos, a neuroethicist tasked with organizing the application of the Guiding Principles, I created a risk assessment and research collection methodology for researching data privacy concerns with respect to each BRAIN-related technology.

This project combined a great deal of intensive technological research with independent research-design, and the enormity of the task required me not only to complete my own research but create replicable research methodologies that could be carried out in future ethics-related research. Furthermore, given the enormity of the task of overseeing hundreds of preclinical and clinical grants per year, the leaders of BRAIN cannot be expected to read a comprehensive literature review on each subtopic, so amalgamating large amounts of data—either dozens of ethics articles on a given topic or small studies of the capabilities of technologies or current research practices—about dozens of privacy-related topics was an absolute necessity.

To meet this challenge, Dr. Ramos and I developed an interactive, data-driven risk-assessment compilation. It is a visual representation of risk assessments as applied to specific BRAIN-related technologies, and each technology-associate risk assessment is linked directly to not only a summary of its source material but also the methodology used to create it. This allowed us to collect and process vast quantities of ethics research and present their recommendations in focused, technology-specific assessments, meaning that not only BRAIN leaders but scientific researchers and the public at large can access and easily discern the ethical areas of interest that BRAIN Neuroethics has identified. This hopefully will be useful in data privacy risk assessment and also as a model for the creation of risk assessment compilations for a range of other ethical issues in the future. I will keep in contact with Neuroethics and hopefully contribute more to this effort, including publishing and presenting our ethics compilation at Neuroethics society meetings and in Neuroethics-focused journals.

Submitted August 20, 2018

U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina – Raleigh, North Carolina

During my 2L criminal procedure class, I worried about developing an aversion to Fourth Amendment issues. I often felt that I misunderstood the cases, and the in-class problems were particularly difficult. However, in my summer job at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, I grew to like working on matters that involved Fourth Amendment issues. I was assigned to write a response to a suppression motion in two different cases, and the experience was both demanding and rewarding. By the end of the summer, my work on these two matters was one of the highlights of my internship.

The first assignment involved a relatively straightforward challenge to a vehicle search. The response didn’t require much research, so I practiced articulating Fourth Amendment doctrine based on my knowledge of foundational cases. I relied on some of my class materials from the spring semester and found that the supplement recommended by my professor was especially helpful. I was satisfied with the first draft and felt encouraged when my supervising attorney did not recommend any major changes. Nearer to the submission deadline, he recommended that I include an argument that I had begun to draft and ultimately omitted. This revision was an exercise in writing precisely and quickly, but I ended up pleased with the final product. I have continued to follow the case and look forward to reading the judge’s disposition of the issue.

The second assignment came on the heels of the first, when I was feeling rather secure in my familiarity with the Fourth Amendment. The latter issue was not at all straightforward: it was a challenge based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Carpenter. The intersection of the Fourth Amendment and modern technology was a discussion topic in my criminal procedure class and the subject of the most recent Casenote, but neither experience had prepared me to submit an argument on the issue in federal court.

Before I began to write, I relied on many secondary sources, guidance from Main Justice, a designated attorney help line, and several AUSAs in addition to the assigning attorney. I spent my evenings after work poring over cases in hopes of preparing myself for the following day. Ultimately, I submitted a draft in time to have it reviewed by a section of Main Justice, and the final product was filed with few substantive edits. This fall, I will get to hear argument on the motion and attend the trial for the defendant who filed it.

In all, my work at the U.S. Attorney’s Office left a lasting impression on me. The Fourth Amendment issues were just one example of the interesting, challenging assignments that I had the opportunity to work on this summer. I completed my internship feeling more confident as a researcher and writer, and I know that these skills will benefit me as I finish law school this year. I am eager to continue to grow in these areas and hope that my career path leads me back to a U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Submitted August 14, 2018