Robert A. Burt Scholar in Society and Neuroscience

Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience is pleased to announce the creation of the position of Robert A. Burt Scholar in Society and Neuroscience in honor of Robert A. Burt, co-founder of the Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience program. Robert “Bo” Burt was Alexander M. Bickel Professor of Law at Yale University and a Visiting Senior Research Scientist at the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University from 2012 until his death in 2015.

Burt received a J.D. degree from Yale University in 1964, an M.A. in Jurisprudence from Oxford University in 1962, and a B.A. from Princeton University in 1960. He began his career clerking for Chief Judge David L. Bazelon of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He served as a legislative assistant to the United States Senator Joseph D. Tydings, 1966-68. Burt joined the faculty of the Yale Law School in 1976 after having served on the law and medical school faculties at the University of Michigan and the law faculty at the University of Chicago. He was appointed the Alexander M. Bickel Professor of Law at Yale University in 1993. Burt was an expert on constitutional law, as well as on issues found at the intersection of law and medicine. From 2001 to 2012, he was a member of the Advisory Board of the Greenwall Foundation Bioethics Faculty Scholar Program; and from 1993 to 2003, he was a member of the Advisory Board of the Project on Death in America of the Open Society Institute. Burt passed away on August 3, 2015, at the age of 76.

One Presidential Scholar each year will be selected for the Robert A. Burt Scholar position. The Scholar will be selected from among the Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience finalists, as determined by the program's Steering Committee during the application and interview process.

Robert A. Burt Scholars

Nedah Nemati, PhD
PhD (2022), Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh
Proposal Title: Moving from Flies to Frogs: Understanding Behavior through Lived Experience 

Raphaël Millière, PhD
PhD (2020), Department of Philosophy, University of Oxford
Proposal Title: The Self in Space: Spatial Content and Self-Representation in Philosophy and Neuroscience

Matthew Sachs, PhD
PhD (2019), Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California, Brain and Cognitive Science
Proposal Title: Mapping the Rich Tapestry of Music-Evoked Emotions

Clare McCormack, PhD
PhD (2016), National Drug and Alcohol Research Center, University of New South Wales, Public Health
Proposal Title: Becoming a Mother in the Context of Trauma: Neuroplasticity and the Lived Experience of Women

Federica Coppola, JD, LLM, PhD
PhD (2017), European University Institute, Criminal Law, and Neuroscience
Proposal Title: Reinventing Criminal Justice with Affective and Social Neuroscience: A Study on the Implications of an Emotion-oriented Theory of Culpability for Adjudication and Punishment