Hey, I even brough some muffins to make up for it:

Will you forgive me?

To introduce myself; my name is Alasdair and I’m a final year law student at St Catharine’s College, Cambrige University. My interests lie in the intersection of law and emerging technology, especially in the effects and interactions of technology and human rights. Its great to meet such a diverse and accomplished set of class mates from across the world and I hope to look at with you at how we begin to create and regulate legal frameworks for complex and developing technologies.

When I am not being a student In my spare time I enjoy skiing, squash and playing internet spaceships You should follow me on twitter here and read my blog here.

http://ethicstalk.cmich.edu

My name is Ken Daniszewski.  I work as an administrative staff member at UCSD in San Diego.  My background is mostly in accounting and education.  I am interested in understanding neuroethics as it might relate to research administration, and also I am interested in the Peer 2 Peer University model.   Also, I’ve read several articles lately about how popular neuroenhancing drugs are becoming, so I am interested in understanding how they might effect higher education in the future.  I look forward to learning about Neuroethics and participating in this course.

Hi everyone, I’m Xenia. I’ll just say a little bit about my ethnic and academic background. If you have any questions, feel free to ask

My mother is Croatian and my father is American of Haitian Creole- and Indo-Afro-American heritage. My stepfather, who raised me with my mom is a Muslim Bosnian, who fled to Germany during the war in the ’90. I live and grew up in Germany, where I currently study at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. I’m enrolled in two separate degree programs. Philosophy is my major in the ‘old program’ of which Magister is the associated degree. This used to be the common degree pursued by humanities students before the Bologna Process. The degree acquired hereby is equivalent to a master’s degree. My two minors in this course of study are Psychology and Zoology. I added Molecular Biology in form of a full-fledged bachelor program after my third semester. So in addition to philosophy as an advanced student (called Hauptstudium in German, which is equivalent to graduate studies)  I have to do the baby steps of undergraduate learning in a different field all over again

Please don’t feel irritated if I put up to many smileys I love smiling and do so often when I talk to people. It’s difficult for me to communicate without body-language and facial expression usually involved in vis-à-vis conversation.

After applying, I wrote a post on how excited I am to participate in this course.

By the way, how about collecting the papers we read for this course on Mendeley? I wrote a review on this program on Blogcritics, mentioning the possibilities it could have for projects as the P2PU.

Captain Mohammed Bushra here, parroting the post format set by Kevin, and reminding ye all in good time that 19 September be International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Arrr!

Now that the most obvious of P2P stereotypes is out of the way, I shall leave you with a short introduction to me and my interest in this module. Very much looking forward to getting to know you all over the coming few weeks!

Mohammed

Mohammed graduated in 2008 with a 2:1 MEng (Hons) in Systems Engineering from Loughborough University in the UK, where he was based at the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering and attended modules at the Departments of Mechanical, Aeronautical and Chemical Engineering, as well as the Physics, Mathematics and Human Sciences Departments, among others. His masters project was supervised by staff at the Systems Engineering Innovation Centre (SEIC) at Loughborough, and was responsible for researching the feasibility of constructing a model to distinguish decentralised enterprises and organisations from centralised ones, particularly in light of the decentralising effects of the Internet, with particular attention given to the examples of the recording industry and the al-Qaeda network. This explains his keen interest in the concept of P2PU and his excitement at being part of its inaugural class of ’09.

Mohammed is based in London, but he is currently gaining experience working as a part-time Avionics lecturer at Sudan University of Science and Technology‘s Aeronautical Engineering Department in Khartoum, and is in the process of applying to study for an MA in Islamic Studies at the University of Khartoum.

His ultimate goal is to qualify as a solicitor back home in London town, with the eventual aim to conduct research in the field of Islamic Legal Theory (Ilm Usul-ul-Fiqh) as part of a wider effort to renew Islamic discourse, away from the tragically widespread symptoms of both the reactionary ghetto mentality typical of Muslims today and the neoliberal intellectual terror pervasive in the West, and toward a leading role more in line with the heyday of the Golden Age of Islamic Learning. This fascination with legal theory, particularly those areas overlapping with ethics, explains his interest in attending Neuroethics and International Biolaw at P2PU.

Mohammed tweets, listens to music, and only very occasionally blogs. His favourite band is Sleater-Kinney.

I am very much looking forward to working with all of you and getting to know each of you over the course of the next few months. Below is a summary of my background and interests.

Best wishes and enjoy the course!

Kevin

Kevin is currently a graduate student of journalism at the University of British Columbia (UBC), School of Journalism in Vancouver, Canada. He is also a member of the National Core for Neuroethics at UBC hospital as an intern investigating ethics issues in neuroscience media. As an undergraduate he studied molecular biology and neuroscience at the University of Guelph and completed his thesis on the role of kinate receptor subunit GluR6 in cerebellar memory and learning in the mouse brain. Also as an undergraduate, Kevin spent a semester studying International Development and Environmental Health in India at the Dhvanyaloka Centre For Indian Studies in Mysore and at the University of Rajasthan in Jaipur. With the help of the Neuroethics and International Biolaw course, as well as through dialogue with his well-informed P2P colleagues, Kevin wishes to learn more about international bio-law, an area in which he has had very little exposure. He also hopes to help better understand how to encourage and disseminate popular use of free, high-quality education through involvement in this new and exciting interdisciplinary and open-source format. He wishes to contribute his knowledge about brain research, his experience in ethical debate, and his understanding of the role and purpose of media in society to informed discussions on an important topic.