h1

 

Areas of Expertise

Research Projects and Academic Consultation for National and International Organisations

• Ethics of Technology (focus on human-technology relations)
• AI and Data Ethics
• Neuroethics
• Biomedical Ethics
• Philosophy of Technology
• Philosophy of Cognitive Science
• Research Ethics

Biography

Prof. Dr. Saskia Nagel is Full Professor and chair of the group Applied Ethics with a Focus on Ethics of Technology at the Department for Society, Technology, and Human Factors at RWTH Aachen University. She is a member of the Human-Technology-Center, the profile areas Medical Science and Technology and Information and Communication Technology, and the AI Center. She is also affiliated with the 4TU Centre for Ethics and Technology and with The Neuroethics Collective.

She holds a BSc and MSc in Cognitive Science with a focus on Neuroscience (University of Osnabrück, Germany) and a doctoral degree in Cognitive Science and Philosophy. Her doctoral thesis has been on neuroethics studying the ethical implications of monitoring and manipulating the brain. She was a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation. As a postdoctoral researcher, she led a research group studying the implications of our growing knowledge about the brain’s plasticity. She was an Assistant Professor at the University of Twente (Netherlands) for philosophy and ethics of technology studying the ethics of human-technology-relations.

Research area

Saskia Nagel is working at the intersection of ethics, philosophy, life sciences (in particular neurosciences and cognitive science), and technologies. She has developed approaches to individual and societal challenges in a technological culture, with a focus on the ethical, anthropological, and social consequences of scientific and technological progress.

Her interdisciplinary research group explores how new human-technology-relations – as for example enabled by research in the fields of neuroscience, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, or data science - influence human self-understanding, and the understanding of values. Recent projects investigate questions of autonomy, responsibility, and trust in lights of emerging technologies such as neurotechnologies, persuasive technologies, and the manifold applications of AI. She is particularly interested in systems in which humans and technology interact and in the complex interplay of enthusiasm, hopes, expectations, fears, and concerns related to new human-technology relations.

Saskia Nagel combines research in Applied Ethics with Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Technology and involves studies on the public understanding of sciences and technological advances. She provides ethics expertise for the European Commission and a variety of national and international institutions.

Her group connects with colleagues across countries and disciplines, pursuing the grand goal to understand how science and technologies help or hinder individuals and societies flourish.