Draft:Emilie Caspar

Emilie Caspar was born in Brussels, Belgium. She obtained an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a master's degree in Neuropsychology and Developmental Psychology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. She also holds degrees in criminology and forensic psychiatry and in teaching from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. She completed her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience, funded by the National Fund for Scientific Research at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, under the supervision of Axel Cleeremans between October 2012 and December 2015. During that period, she was also a visiting PhD student for 1.5 years at University College London under the supervision of Patrick Haggard. She then received a postdoctoral fellowship from the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (European Commission) to work at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (Amsterdam) with social neuroscientists Christian Keysers and Valeria Gazzola. Later, she obtained a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship funded by the National Fund for Scientific Research at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. At 33 years old, she was appointed Associate Professor at Ghent University in the Department of Experimental Psychology and established the Moral and Social Brain lab.

Expertise

Emilie Caspar’s main research area is the study of the cognitive underpinnings guiding moral and immoral behaviors, particularly within coercive environments. She investigates the neural mechanisms that may be altered when people obey orders compared to when acting freely, and how some individuals can resist such orders, notably by studying genocide rescuers in Rwanda. She employs a social neuroscience approach that integrates self-report measures, behavioral assessments, and brain imaging techniques, including electroencephalography and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Caspar has specialized in conducting field research in neuroscience with populations often underrepresented in scientific studies, such as military personnel, prisoners, and both survivors and perpetrators of genocides in Rwanda and Cambodia. In addition to her research, she has also served as a scientific consultant for humanitarian NGOs.

Honors and Awards

• 2024: Laureate of the Excellence Award at the Grey Matter Trophies for Scientific Vulgarisation, by Matière Grise (Belgian Television)
• 2024: Laureate of the S4SN Early Career Award by the Society for Social Neuroscience (S4SN)
• 2023: Selected in the top 15 of the New Scientist NL for young talents
• 2022: Elected member of the Collegium, Royal Academy of Belgium
• 2021: Awarded the Francqui Start-Up Grant and the Francqui Docent title by the Francqui Foundation
• 2016: Laureate of the Evens Science Prize 2016 by the Evens foundation - together with Patrick Haggard, Axel Cleeremans and Julia Christensen for our work on how coercion changes the sense of agency in the human brain
• 2016: Laureate of the Prize of Psychology awarded by the Royal Academy of Belgium for the best PhD thesis in scientific psychology defended between January 2012 and December 2015.
• 2014: Laureate of the Theodorus III price together with Ir. Albert De Beir for creating and developing a robotic hand that can be used in experiments conducted in psychology and neurosciences.

Popularization of Science

Documentary

• 2024: Documentary by Matière grise (RTBF) on obedience to authority in Belgium and in Rwanda (“All executioners ?" )
• 2021: Documentary by Matière Grise on synaethesia (“Quand tous les sens se mélangent dans le cerveau”)
• 2020: Documentary by Matière Grise on brain-computer interfaces (“Quand la science s’inspire de la fiction”)
• 2019: Documentary by BBC Reel about Free-will and Coercion (Link) (“The surprisingly dark world of having free will”)
• 2018: Documentary broadcasted on Netflix The Most Unknown on scientific research directed by Ian Cheney.

Book

• 2024: Caspar, E.A. Just Obeying Orders? Atrocities and the Brain Science of Obedience. Cambridge University Press.

Exhibition

• 2019: Section on Brain-Computer Interfaces - Exhibition “The Art of Difference” (BOZAR, Brussels)

Selection of podcasts, media attention & public events

Worldwide coverage of Caspar's work in more than 60 outlets (e.g. Nature, The New York Times, The American Scientist, BBC News, Scientific American, …)

• 2024: "Fact & Fiction: The Future of Democracy" at Bozar, organized by Nobel Prize Outreach and the European Research Council
• 2024: Article written for Carta Academica (Le Soir) on war-related trauma
• 2024: Invited speaker for the podcast "Being obedient - Why we submit ourselves" (original in german: “Gehorsam sein - Warum wir uns unterordnen”) for SWR2 Wissen.
• 2023: Article written for Carta Academica (Le Soir) on why prison does not prevent recidivism
• 2023: Interview for the journal Le Soir for an article on synaesthesia
• 2022: Interview for Science & Vie
• 2022: Interview by the Boston Glode on disobedience to authority after the school shooting in Uvalde (Texas)
• 2021: Interview for portrait for the German science Magazine Spektrum der Wissenschaft
• 2021: Interview on LN24 by Laurette Onkelinx and Olivier Maingain on Trump’s supporters at the Capitol
• 2021: Interview for a podcast on my research on obedience in “La tête bien faite: Sommes-nous programmés pour obéir?”
• 2020: Invited by Nature publisher to write a blog post on “Behind the paper –What it is like to work with the military for an experiment?”
• 2019: Podcast for Milgram des Savoirs on obedience to authority
• 2018: Interviewed by the BBC future for an article on what it is like to stand up against authority.
• 2017: Invited to give a conference about the notion of free will in neurosciences by the “Brussels Skeptics in the Pub ».
• 2016: Scientific American “How Nazi's Defense of "Just Following Orders" Plays Out in the Mind”

Bibliography

• Caspar, E.A (2024). Understanding Individual Motivations and Deterrents: Interviews with Genocide Perpetrators from Rwanda and Cambodia. Journal of Perpetrator Research.
• Caspar, E.A., Pech, G. P., Gishoma, D., & Kanazayire, C. (2022). On the impact of the genocide on the intergroup empathy bias between former perpetrators, survivors and their children in Rwanda. American Psychologist
• Caspar, E. A., Gishoma, D., & Magalhaes de Saldanha da Gama, P. A. (2022). On the cognitive mechanisms supporting prosocial disobedience in a post-genocidal context. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 21875.
• Caspar, E.A., Lo Bue, S., Magalhaes De Saldanha da Gama, P.A., Haggard, P., & Cleeremans A. (2020). The effect of military training on the sense of agency and outcome processing. Nature Communications, 11(1), 1-10.
• Caspar, E.A., Ioumpa, K., Keysers, C. & Gazzola, V. (2020). Obeying orders reduces vicarious brain activation towards victims’ pain. NeuroImage, 117251.
• Caspar, E.A., Christensen, J., Cleeremans, A., & Haggard P. (2016). Coercion changes the sense of agency in the human brain. Current Biology, 26, 585-592.

External sites

• Personal blog on field research: https://emiliecaspar.home.blog/
• Head of the Moral & Social Brain lab:https://moralsocialbrain.com/