Coordinators of the Program

Jeff Buechner, Ph.D. - Lecturer in Philosophy
Interested in the intersection between molecular biology and formal logic, especially in finding the right formal characterization of the “reasoning” that underlies the process of copying DNA to produce an RNA transcript. Few, if any, people have previously thought of attempting to apply the rules of formal logic to molecular biology. He attended the 2005 Summer Faculty Institute on the Human Genome Project at Dartmouth. He teaches biologically-oriented philosophy courses at Rutgers-Newark including: Logic for Computational Biology, Philosophy of Molecular Biology, and Bioethics. His book, Godel, Putnam, and Functionalism, on the philosophical foundations of cognitive science was published in 2008 by The MIT Press.

Peter R. Gillett , Ph.D. - Academic Director, Prudential Business Ethics Center
Professor Gillett's areas of research and interest include corporate transparency and corporate governance, fraudulent financial reporting, audit committee characteristics, auditing and audit evidence, uncertain reasoning, theoretical foundations of imprecise probability theory, ontology, philosophy of science, and research methodologies. He has published articles in The Journal of Business Ethics, Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory, International Journal of Approximate Reasoning, and Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, as well as contributing to other journals and books. His teaching has focused in recent years on accounting information systems, philosophy of science and research methods. Prior to returning to the academic world, Dr. Gillett spent nine years with Price Waterhouse and eight with Grant Thornton, where he was the Partner in charge of Advanced Audit Techniques and European Director of Audit Methods. Professor Gillett holds B.A. and M.A degrees in Mathematics and Philosophy from St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, and a Ph.D. in Business from the University of Kansas

Barry Komisaruk, Ph.D. - Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology
Has published over 140 research papers in behavioral neuroscience, teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in psychology, was Director of Rutgers-Newark campus’s large NIH Minority Biomedical Research Support (MBRS) Grant for 17 years, was leader of the MBRS program at NIH for three years while on leave from Rutgers; has run several summer science institutes for inner city school students. His research has been featured on various Discovery Channel programs. His new book on reproductive biology was published in October, 2006, by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

Robert Nahory, Ph.D. - Digital Library Applications Developer, Rutgers University Libraries
Has worked as research scientist in solid-state physics at Bell Labs and Bellcore where he published over 150 papers in scientific journals on lasers and materials science; has coauthored a book in the Scientific American Library Series (Freeman Publishing) titled Lasers: Harnessing the Atom’s Light; has taught physics at Rutgers - Newark and developed undergraduate student research programs. Current interests have evolved toward digital library development, building digital applications for learning with focus on streaming video / multimedia; also currently working in the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers to create a digital collection of jazz artifacts, photos, video and audio.

Yolanda Gullette - Prudential Business Ethics Center, Rutgers - Newark
Has worked with the Center for almost five years overseeing the daily administrative activities. She works closely with Directors and Professors to coordinate the bioethics program and to see that it continues to thrive. Her hopes and aspirations are to give the students of the Merck Summer Institute on Bioethics firm direction before entering into Colleges/Universities so that they can roadmap their destiny and achieve their goals. The goal is that the students will see that they can be anything that they desire if they work hard at it and believe in themselves.

Other Organizers, Lecturers & Discussion Leaders