Francis Shen spends a lot of time thinking about transhuman cyborgs, brain-wave lie detectors, sex robots and terrorists hacking into devices implanted in our heads.
And, no, he's not a science fiction writer. He's a neurolawyer.
More precisely, he's a University of Minnesota law school professor and expert in the emerging field of neurolaw, which looks at how brain science could affect law and public policy.
Shen researches and writes about the legal implications of everything from concussions in youth sports to the reliability of memory. Neuroscience, he said, is poised to influence debates ranging from fetal pain to the nature of brain death and whether brain abnormalities can be used as a mitigating factor in criminal sentencing.
"We're trying to prepare for a world that's coming, but not quite here yet," said Shen.
To that end, he created the Shen Neurolaw Lab at the law school, where the motto is "Every story is a brain story."
Shen admits his neurolaw is so cutting-edge as to be invisible.
"No one's ever heard about neurolaw," said Shen, 40, who has been at the law school since 2012. But he's convinced it "will fundamentally change the law."