Meet the ReO members! Episode 10 - Gaia Barazzetti

How would you describe yourself in a few words?

Let's see… I guess I’m a very curious person, maybe a little too much so because I am interested in practically everything… I’m someone who observes and listens a lot, can’t stop marvelling at the world around me, and I’m passionate about learning from anyone who has experience or knowledge to share. Apart from unbridled curiosity, I’m someone who’s extremely tenacious. But I’m also a great procrastinator, I have to admit.

What has been your career path?

I am a moral philosopher by training. For the past twenty years I have been a researcher and teacher in the field of ethics of science and technology, with a strong commitment to stakeholder engagement, policy impact, and public outreach. I have a particular interest in ethics in engineering, and in fact have developed undergraduate and postgraduate training in these fields at EPFL in the past. During that academic journey, I worked on several issues of public interest in the areas of engineering and biomedical research. In addition, I have served as a member of ethics committees at the federal, cantonal and institutional level, such as the EPFL Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC), thus acquiring a rather broad expertise in research ethics compliance. Since February 2022, I have been a part of the Ethics Affairs team at the EPFL Research Office.

What does a “Research Ethics Compliance Officer” do at the EPFL Research Office?

As Research Ethics Compliance Officers, our mission is to support the EPFL research community on all ethics-related issues of research projects, in particular with regard to the ethics compliance requirements. We can give ethics support for the proposal preparation, such as ethics self-assessment, or guidance on how to get the ethics authorization. Our work also includes raising awareness of ethical standards in research and fostering collaboration with external institutional partners such as cantonal ethics commissions. In particular, I am coordinating the work of the EPFL Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC), which has the mandate to review projects conducted by EPFL researchers that involve human participants and/or personal data and that do not fall within the scope of the Swiss law on human research. Projects falling under the scope of the law need to be reviewed by cantonal ethics commissions and, as Research Ethics Compliance Officers, we also provide support on this research ethics clearance.

What is driving you in your job?

Sharing ideas, knowledge, and experiences with colleagues, students and researchers, contending with real intellectual and practical challenges, and finally, exercising real creativity in my job make my working days more interesting and satisfying. I believe that to make our working life socially and personally meaningful we must hold on to our values and moral integrity, and hold a very critical view of any employment system that attempts to train us otherwise.

What are the main challenges you are facing on a daily basis?

One of the biggest challenges for me is that ethics compliance can sometimes be perceived as an administrative burden. But in reality, adherence to ethical standards and ethics compliance requirements are there to strengthen scientific research. We all know very well that science is for good and that when it comes to good science you need to do it the right way. Through dialogue and in collaboration with researchers we can find the right solution to the ethical problems raised by their research, and that challenge in fact becomes a great opportunity: to promote together a culture of scientific integrity at EPFL.

Outside EPFL, what do you enjoy doing the most?

I love reading: books, books, and books. I love listening to many types of music, from opera, to contemporary classical, to jazz, to electronic music. I love cooking – which I’m also pretty good at – and going to museums. I love cinema, “the most beautiful fraud in the world” – as Godard said. But I have a soft spot for science fiction movies. I love walking for hours and getting lost in cities that I should know very well. I love the sea, I think I could not live without it. And I love watching the starry sky, possibly with a powerful telescope. But since I’m a mom, the thing I love most is looking at the world through the eyes of my 5 years daughter.

What are your life and/or career aspirations?

This is a great question, but one that I can’t answer superficially. I believe that we live in a time when, like never before in history, we are perfectly capable of realising the fragility of our human condition and of our planet. My aspiration is to keep asking myself “what are we doing?” and “what should we do?”, and then to be able to act to leave future generations a more durable and just world.

Meet the rest of the team!