Researcher Bio
Rémy Furrer, PhD, is a behavioral scientist and bioethics researcher currently serving as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Neurosurgery. With a PhD in psychology from the University of Virginia, Dr. Furrer specializes in applying experimental methods, design principles, and insights from social and cognitive psychology, affective science, and bioethics to address ethical challenges in medical decision-making.
Building on his graduate work, Dr. Furrer now leads survey projects funded by the NIH/NHGRI ELSI R01 grant on the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of emerging genomic technologies like polygenic embryo screening. His current research investigates how various stakeholders—such as patients, medical doctors, genetic counselors, and the general public—perceive, understand, and make decisions based on polygenic risk scores. His work aims to enhance the communication of health-related genetic data to support informed consent, improve patient decision-making, and reduce psychosocial harms.
His programmatic line of research bridges experimental psychology with bioethics, exploring how psychological biases impact perceptions of genetic risk and Neurotechnologies.
Driven by a commitment to ethical science communication,
he aims to develop human-centered design approaches that make complex health information transparent, accessible, and practically useful for both medical professionals and the public. His work provides novel insights into the ethical, psychological, and social dimensions of genomic technologies, advancing the field of bioethics and supporting more evidence-based ethical decision-making in genomic medicine.
