Brendan Shea

I am a Professor of Philosophy and Computer Science at Rochester Community and Technical College and a Resident Fellow at the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. I'm also currently serving as the Public Member of the Institutional Biosafety Committee at Mayo Clinic-Rochester. Before coming to RCTC, I got a BA at Winona State University (MN) and spent a year at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, before taking a PhD (in Philosophy) and MS (in Computer Science) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Outside of teaching philosophy and computer science, my professional life has included almost a decade working with developmentally disabled adults, and a few years working closely with research scientists as an editor in the Science-Technology-Medicine division of an academic publisher.

My main research and teaching interests lie in the philosophy of science, applied ethics, and in the areas where these overlap (such as bioethics and the ethics of artificial intelligence). I also have significant interests in logic (especially inductive logic) and in philosophical pedagogy. Finally, I do a fair amount of public philosophy, whether this in the form of writing book chapters for popular audiences, teaching classes for community members, giving talks to local organizations, or serving on various review boards and scientific committees.

At RCTC, I teach courses in Bioethics, Business Ethics, Compassion Studies, Database/SQL, Intro to Computer Science, Ethics, Introductory Philosophy, Logic, Philosophy of Religion, and "Western Humanities". In the past, I've also taught courses in Ancient Philosophy, Philosophy of Biology, and Inductive Logic. I design and teach courses for my college's Learning Is ForEver program for seniors, which have been on topics ranging from AI Ethics to Buddhist Philosophy to Climate Change to Immigration Policy. I love reading, writing, and discussing issues of pedagogy.