Applications are being accepted for the second class of Vanderbilt University鈥檚 innovative Ph.D/J.D. track, culminating in degrees in both law and neuroscience.
Vanderbilt launched the first coordinated track through both degrees in 2010 when it enrolled Bowdoin College alumnus to take on a challenging curriculum that alternates classes at and the university鈥檚 graduate program in neuroscience.
who receive coordinated mentoring from the faculty in both departments – will be poised to help guide legal and scientific experts as they negotiate challenging issues arising at the intersection of the two disciplines.
鈥淭hese are different but increasingly related worlds and they need to be bridged,鈥� of the , all at Vanderbilt.
鈥淭hey have different vocabularies, different norms and different purposes. The legal system is trying to figure out how to grapple with advances in neuroscience in a sensible and sophisticated way that furthers the goals of law. As a consequence, we need to help judges learn what they need to know to make admissibility decisions about brian-related evidence that can raise deep questions about a defendant鈥檚 responsibility for his actions. We also need to help lawyers understand both the promise of, and the limitations of, neuroscientific evidence.鈥�
Vanderbilt is also home to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation . That national network of scholars is working on cutting-edge law/neuroscience research, with the goal of helping to improve the fairness and effectiveness of the criminal justice system. It has also gathered and is set to produce the first course book on law and neuroscience in 2013.
Ginther is pleased with the joint-degree track midway through his second year. His first two semesters were spent at the law school. Now he is concentrating on neuroscience, and from here on out he will blend the two worlds.
鈥淚 have to maintain dual personalities,鈥� Ginther said. 鈥淚f you talk like a lawyer in a neuroscience class, it won鈥檛 work. And if you talk like a neuroscientist in a law class, that鈥檚 also a problem. Yet it鈥檚 vitally important to improve communication between the two groups.鈥�
Advances in the study of the brain continue to add layers of complications to legal proceedings, Jones said. 鈥淭horny questions will only increase as research continues, and Matt Ginther and the people who follow
him in this program are being trained to help society negotiate this tricky terrain, and to help make the justice system both more effective and more just.鈥�