The 2023 Tech Ethics Symposium: Nov 9-10

9:00 - 10:30 a.m. EST.

It’s been nearly one year since the release of ChatGPT, when the world of public-facing generative AI exploded. In the past year alone, we have heard predictions of the end of the world, of the end of all white-collar jobs, and the end of human art as we know it. But what has really changed, and what has largely remained the same, since generative AI systems have overwhelmed the tech landscape? Are we in a new tech bubble? Will courts and regulation change the face of generative AI in the near future? What will the business world look like in 5 years? Join Rebekah Tweed, Executive Director of All Tech is Human, and Alka Patel, former Head of AI Ethics Policy for the Department of Defense Joint AI Center, for a discussion about the past, present and future of generative AI. 

• Rebekah Tweed, Executive Director, All Tech is Human
• Alka Patel, Former Chief of Responsible AI, U.S. Dept of Defense, Joint AI Center 
• Annie Newman, Director of Digital Strategy, Office of Governor Josh Shapiro, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
• Moderated by John P. Slattery, PhD, Director of the Grefenstette Center

10:45 -11:30 a.m. EST.

How is AI being used in the healthcare industry? What aspects of modern healthcare could generative AI replace, improve, or even make worse? From patient recommendations to public health advisories and  new technologies, join us for a discussion with leading experts surrounding the future of AI in healthcare.  

• Shyam Visweswaran, MD, PhD, Director, Center for Clinical Artificial Intelligence, University of Pittsburgh
• Joseph Bertino, PhD, HEC-C, Director of Ethics, UPMC Presbyterian, Shadyside and Western Psychiatric
• Urmi Ashar, MD, Director of Public Health Programs, Rangos School of Health Sciences, Duquesne University
• Moderated by Florence Chee, PhD, Director of the Center for Digital Ethics and Policy, Loyola University Chicago

11:30 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. EST

AI is not only changing the world, but it is also affecting our local communities. What do all these changes in AI mean to the Pittsburgh community? Will AI help to make local education better? How can we potentially use AI to serve the needs of Pittsburgh students, whether children or adults? Join our local science and education experts for a lively discussion relevant to our own communities here in Pittsburgh.

• Casey Mindlin, STEM Coding Lab Executive Director
• Jackie Foor, Executive Director of the Consortium for Public Education
• Andre Samuel, PhD, Founder, President & CEO, The Citizen Science Lab
• Moderated by LaTrenda Leonard Sherrill, Principal, Common Cause Consultants

12:15 - 1:30 p.m. EST

All attendees are invited to stay in the area for a buffet lunch and to browse the student and faculty research posters. During the lunch hour, students will be standing beside their posters, presenting them to conference attendees and discussing the details!

1:30 - 2:15 p.m. EST

What does it mean to be a person of faith in this unprecedented age of generative AI? How might religious perspectives change our approach to AI and other technology? More specifically, what does Christian ethics have to say about AI, and what are Christian leaders doing about AI around the world? This panel will explore the role faith plays in ethics and the way it impacts even the questions asked around AI ethics. 

• Luis Vera, PhD, Department of Theology, Mount St. Mary’s University
• Catherine Moon, PhD, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture
• Hannah Eagleson, PhD, Director of Partnerships and Affiliations, American Scientific Affiliation
• Moderated by Paul Scherz, PhD, Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia

2:15 - 2:45 p.m. EST

Presented in partnership with the Center for Teaching Excellence, Duquesne University

How is generative AI being used in the classroom right now? What tips and tricks are faculty using to integrate AI into their subjects, their lesson plans, and their student outcomes? How can we ensure that generative AI changes education for the better, both for students and faculty? Join a panel of Duquesne faculty as they discuss their ongoing efforts to tackle this unique challenge that may forever alter higher education!

• Moderated by Jeff Lambert, PhD, Center for Teaching Excellence, Duquesne University
• James Purdy, PhD, Department of English and University Writing Center Director
• Wenqi Zhou, PhD, David Warco Faculty Fellow in Information Systems & Technology, Palumbo-Donahue School of Business
• Urmi Ashar, MD, Director of Public Health Programs, Rangos School of Health Sciences
• Morgan Gray, JD, Kline School of Law

2:45 - 315 p.m. EST

Now that we’ve heard from faculty, what do the students have to say? How is generative AI affecting the student experience of coursework, papers, exams, and faculty interactions? Join a lively discussion with current Duquesne undergraduates as they explore the highs and lows of the evolving world of generative AI in their own academic journeys.Moderated and paneled by the Grefenstette Student Fellowship Recipients

• Emelie Curtis, '24, Business Administration
  
• Kayla Kraeuter, '24, Biomedical Engineering
  
• Jacob Mazurkiewicz, '25, Data Science
  
• Sydney Thomas, '24, Psychology and Sociology

3:30 - 5:00 p.m. EST

Join the Hon. Conor Lamb (US Rep, 2018-2023) and Dean April Barton of Kline School of Law in a thought provoking final conversation on AI, policy, and the future of tech regulation. How can policymakers harness the potential of Generative AI while safeguarding against misuse? What ethical and legal considerations must be taken into account when regulating new technologies and big tech? This discussion and award presentation will conclude our conference. 

• Hon. Conor Lamb (US Rep, 2018-2023)
• Dean April Barton, JD, Thomas Kline School of Law
• Respondent: Alka Patel, Former Chief of Responsible AI, U.S. Dept of Defense, Joint AI Center 
• Moderated by John Slattery, PhD, Director, Grefenstette Center

1:00 - 4:00 p.m. EST

Presented in partnership with the Institute for Ethics and Integrity in Journalism and Media

Does artificial intelligence help or hinder accurate reporting and writing the news? Answer this question and many more with leading media ethicist Patrick Plaisance of Penn State and experts from The Associated Press, along with local media, who will debate this topic during a live streamed and in-person conversation.

1:30  - 2:15 p.m. – Keynote, Patrick Lee Plaisance

Patrick Lee Plaisance is the Don W. Davis Professor in Ethics at the Bellisario College of Communications at Pennsylvania State University, and an Affiliate Faculty at the Rock Ethics Institute at Penn State. 

2:30 - 4:00 p.m. – Panel Discussion

• Patrick Lee Plaisance, PhD, Penn State
• Jim Parsons, WTAE News Director
• Joe Lawrence, CEO at MeSearch and General Counsel for Trib Total Media
• Ted Anthony, Director of New Storytelling and Newsroom Innovations, The Associated Press
• Troy Thibodeaux, PhD, Director of Digital News, The Associated Press
• Moderated by Natalie Bencivenga, Fellow, Institute for Ethics and Integrity in Journalism and Media 

4:30 - 6:00 p.m. EST

What does it mean to encounter AI from a position of faith? How can we apply Pope Francis’ teachings about AI to current debates on the ethics and future of technology? What does it mean for definitions of humanity and our relationship to God? Join members of the Vatican Center for Digital Culture as they discuss the upcoming new volume from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, “Encountering AI: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations”!

With a special introduction by Bishop Paul Tighe, Secretary of Culture, Dicastery for Culture and Education

• Paul Scherz, PhD, Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia
• Luis Vera, PhD, Department of Theology, Mount St. Mary’s University
• Catherine Moon, PhD, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture
• Nathan Colaner, PhD, Managing Director of Initiative in Ethics and Transformative Technologies, Seattle University
• Moderated by John Slattery, PhD, Director, Grefenstette Center

Dr. Urmi Ashar's multidisciplinary skills equip her to address complex issues in healthcare, education, and governance. She serves as the Director of Public Health Programs at Duquesne University, where she has made the curriculum more experiential and innovative, working with CETR and community partners. Proficient in Adaptive Leadership, she builds multistakeholder coalitions to solve complex problems. Her holistic approach incorporates strengths-based training in leadership curricula. As healthcare embraces generative AI, she emphasizes the importance of focusing on relational human aspects to cure us of our inaction to social determinants of health.

April M. Barton joined Duquesne University School of Law in 2019 as Dean and Professor of Law. She previously held various positions at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law, most recently as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. At Villanova, Barton taught courses in administrative agency rulemaking, computer law, the First Amendment and regulation in cyberspace, digital law, and leadership for lawyers.

In addition to authoring Best Practices for Building a High-Tech Law School: The Process of Designing Educational Spaces published by the ABA's Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Barton's work has been published in law reviews including the Washington University Law Review, Baylor Law Review, and the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science and Technology. Barton has testified before the U.S. Congressional Commission on Online Child Protection and the European Commission for Democracy through Law, Venice Commission, in Brussels.

Barton served as an attorney with the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection in the Division of Marketing Practices, where she worked on policy and law enforcement issues related to internet fraud and deception. 

Joseph Bertino is the director of clinical ethics for UPMC’s Presbyterian, Shadyside, and Western Psychiatric campuses. He received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Scranton, a master’s degree in philosophy, and a Doctorate in health care ethics from Duquesne University. Joe previously worked as a clinical ethicist for WellStar Health System in Atlanta, Georgia, where he aided in the construction and development of a system-wide ethics consultation service. Joe has also worked as a professor for Georgia State University and Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, teaching courses in clinical ethics, moral theory, and catholic bioethics. He is a frequent contributor to various biomedical ethics journals and an active American Society of Bioethics and Humanities member.

Dr. Florence Chee is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Program Director of the Center for Digital Ethics and Policy (CDEP) at Loyola University Chicago. She is also Founding Director of the Social & Interactive Media Lab Chicago (SIMLab), devoted to the in-depth study of social phenomena at the intersection of society and technology.

Her research examines the social, cultural, and ethical dimensions of emergent digital lifestyles with a particular focus on the examination of artificial intelligence, games, social media, mobile platforms, and translating insights about their lived contexts across industrial, governmental, and academic sectors.

She serves as an External Consultee to the Freedom Online Coalition's (FOC) Taskforce on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights (T-FAIR) and is a Key Constituent of the United Nations 3C Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence.

She has designed and taught graduate/undergraduate courses in Digital Media including Game Studies, where students engage with debates surrounding diversity, intersectionality and media production through social justice frameworks.

Nathan Colaner is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Management at Seattle University, where his main research and teaching focus is on the ethics of artificial intelligence, especially as it relates to business. At Seattle University, he is also the Program Director of Business Analytics and the Managing Director of Ethics and Technology. His teaching revolves around institutional ethics, focusing on the ethical implications of organizations; increasing reliance on digital technology.

Outside of SU, he consults on AI ethics with businesses, government, military, other university ethics and technology centers, and religious societies to assess risk in implementing big data and AI solutions.

Dr. Hannah Eagleson is Director of Partnerships and Innovation, American Scientific Affiliation; and Director of Graduate and Faculty Engagement, Chesterton House (a Christian study center at Cornell). She is developing a report for Christian organizations on engaging AI through scholarship-informed programming. The report is shaped by two Visiting Scholar roles (2022/2023), one at Stanford's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) and one at New College Berkeley, affiliated with the Graduate Theological Union. She is advising a multifaith research-focused social gathering accepted to NeurIPS 2023. She holds a PhD, University of Delaware, and an MA, St. John’s College.

Jackie Foor serves as the Executive Director of the Consortium for Public Education. The Consortium is a nonprofit organization that works with school districts across Southwestern Pennsylvania and beyond, on initiatives designed to strengthen and broaden school leadership and engage community so that students have access to the opportunities and experiences they need to imagine, plan, and prepare for their futures. As an intermediary organization, the Consortium connects schools and businesses and helps build impactful partnerships that provide students with real-world learning experiences and meaningful career exploration. This work is designed and implemented through an equity lens so that all students, regardless of income, background, and circumstances, have what they need to realize success in school, career, community, and life. Over the 2022-23 school year, 90 school districts participated in Consortium events to learn more about how they can better support their students.

Throughout her career, Jackie has held positions focused on the intersection between education and workforce development. Prior to joining the Consortium in 2013, she worked for Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Pittsburgh and the Mt. Lebanon Foundation for Education. She also worked with the Consortium’s predecessor organization, the Mon Valley Education Consortium (MVEC), coordinating a statewide advocacy project around No Child Left Behind. Additionally, she has experience in adult and technical education through the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, Forbes Road CTC, and Altoona Area School District. Jackie earned her Bachelor’s in Secondary Education from Penn State and a Master’s in Professional Leadership and Nonprofit Management from Carlow University. She is a member of the Penn State Alumni Council, PA Career Coalition, PA Youth Workforce Development Board Youth Committee, PA State Stem Ecosystem, SWPA Personalized Learning Working Group, and is a Remake Learning Ambassador.

Morgan A. Gray is an adjunct professor of law at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University. The primary areas of his scholarship are criminal procedure , machine learning, natural language processing, empirical legal analysis, and legal text analytics.  He also researches and develops systems to enable access to justice.  His numerous published works have focused on the automatic identification of legal factors in legal documents and how predictions made by machine learning models can be interpreted and understood by users in the legal domain.  

He received his B.A. from Thiel College in 2016, his J.D. from Duquesne Kline School of Law in 2019, and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Intelligent Systems from the University of Pittsburgh. He served as a judicial clerk for the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania for two years and is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and the Western District of Pennsylvania.

A longtime resident of Pittsburgh, Conor Lamb earned his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Pennsylvania and served as an assistant U.S. attorney in his home city from 2014 to 2017. He ran for the 18th district's seat in a special election caused by Republican Congressman Tim Murphy's resignation and defeated Republican Rick Saccone. After Pennsylvania's congressional map was redrawn by court order the same year, Lamb won his first full term to the 17th district in the general election. Lamb did not seek re-election to his House seat in 2022, choosing instead to run for Senate. He finished second in the 2022 Democratic primary behind John Fetterman. He is currently a lawyer at Kline & Specter PC, and a Distinguished Lecturer of Law at Duquesne University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law.

Dr. Jeff Lambert serves as the Center for Teaching Excellence's Assistant Director for Educational Development. In his role, Jeff provides resources, workshops, and consultations on college teaching and learning as well as academic career success with faculty and graduate students at Duquesne University. Jeff has a passion for engaged learning modalities and efforts to produce equitable and trauma-informed learning environments for students, faculty, and staff.

Casey Mindlin serves as the Executive Director of STEM Coding Lab, Pittsburgh’s only nonprofit devoted to providing computer science education to our region’s under-resourced youth. In that capacity, Casey oversees all aspects of the organization’s work, including educational programming, external communications and development, partnerships, and more.

Prior to STEM Coding Lab, Casey served as Director of Partnerships at Scholastic, where he oversaw all of the company’s partnership initiatives out of Washington, DC, Silicon Valley, and Pittsburgh. Before joining Scholastic, Casey was the Director of Business Development & Communications at the American Continental Group (ACG), one of the largest lobbying firms in Washington, DC. He began his career in the office of Sen. Michael F. Bennet, where he served as a Legislative Fellow, working on the senator’s education and healthcare policy portfolio.

Casey serves on the Board of Directors at Trying Together, is an op-ed contributor to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Hill Magazine, and received his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Colorado, where he graduated as a member of the Phi Sigma Theta Honors Society. He currently lives with his wife, Angela, and two sons, Charlie and Myles, in Pittsburgh.

Catherine Moon is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. She studies Edith Stein and the role of human experience in moral discernment and coming to know. Her present research at the IASC focuses on the role of religious experience to civil life in interreligious and postmodern secular contexts as well as the relationship between new technologies and the common good, particularly as it relates to education.

She has previously taught courses in theology, philosophy, and ethics at Georgetown University, Mount St. Mary’s University, and The Catholic University of America. She received her doctorate in Moral Theology & Ethics from The Catholic University of American in August of 2023. She also earned a Master in Theological Studies from Boston College in the School of Theology & Ministry as well a Bachelor in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College Annapolis.

Annie Newman is Governor Josh Shapiro’s Director of Digital Strategy — the first to hold the role and lead the newly-formed Office of Digital Strategy. In this role, Annie is the chief architect for Governor Shapiro’s digital communications, partnerships, and services, including leading the Administration’s work to responsibly integrate generative AI into Commonwealth operations. Prior to this role, Annie served as the Digital Director for Shapiro for Pennsylvania during the 2022 Governor’s race, where she led a nearly $10 million digital program using cutting edge strategies to reach Pennsylvanians all across the Commonwealth. Thanks to her expertise and leadership, Governor-Elect Shapiro was able to bring his message to communities who have never engaged with a gubernatorial campaign before – from Gen-Z and TikTok influencers to rural communities across the Commonwealth. Prior to her work with Governor Shapiro, Annie led digital strategy for democratic committees and campaigns in Montana, Massachusetts, and the United Kingdom. Annie began her career with The Messina Group and attended the University of St Andrews.

Alka recently served as the Head of #AIEthics Policy for the Department of Defense (DoD) Joint AI Center (JAIC). In this role, she led efforts on Responsible AI in the DoD, bringing over 20+ years of experience working at the intersection of technology, business and law. Before that, she was the inaugural Executive Director of the #Digital Transformation and #Innovation Center sponsored by PwC (an industry/academic partnership) at Carnegie Mellon University. In addition to leading the start-up of the $13 million Center including developing and executing Center strategy and operations, she managed the industry sponsor’s relationship as well as managed over 25 research projects (from project scoping through delivery) with interdisciplinary faculty teams in the area of #artificial intelligence, data analytics, and cybersecurity/privacy.

Alka has been recognized for her professional and personal contributions locally and nationally. She has served on a number of non-profit boards advocating for gender and racial diversity, social impact, and has held leadership positions in professional organizations.

Patrick Lee Plaisance is the Don W. Davis Professor in Ethics in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications. He also is an Affiliate Faculty member with the Rock Ethics Institute. His research focuses on media ethics theory, moral psychology theory and methods, and the philosophy of technology as applied to media systems and practices.

He is author of a textbook, "Media Ethics: Key Principles for Responsible Practice" (Cognella, 3rd Ed., 2020), which is used nationwide, and a book featuring original research, "Virtue in Media: The Moral Psychology of Excellence in News and Public Relations" (Routledge, 2015). He is editor of the "Handbook of Communication & Media Ethics" (DeGruyter Mouton, 2018). He serves as editor of the Journal of Media Ethics, which is the flagship journal for peer-reviewed research in the field from around the world. He also writes a regular blog on media ethics issues for Psychology Today.

He has published more than two dozen journal articles and book chapters, and his work has appeared in research journals, including Communication Research, Communication Theory, the Journal of Communication, and Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly.

Before coming to Penn State, he taught at Colorado State University for 15 years. He also had a career of nearly 15 years as a newspaper journalist in New Jersey, south Florida and Virginia, where he specialized in state-level political reporting. He received his Ph.D. From Syracuse University.

Dr. Jim Purdy is an Associate Professor of English/Writing Studies and Director of the University Writing Center. He received his doctorate in English with a specialization in writing studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

His research and teaching interests include composition and writing center theory, digital humanities, digital writing and research practices and spaces, expertise, intellectual property, and Wikipedia. His research studies ways in which digital technologies shape and are shaped by the research and writing practices of scholars, from first-year college students to professional academics.

He received Duquesne's Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2016.

His most recent book is The Effects of Intellectual Property Law in Writing Studies: Ethics, Sponsors, and Academic Knowledge-Making (Routledge), co-written with Karen J. Lunsford. In addition to publishing in numerous scholarly journals and edited volumes, he has also co-edited four books, including Making Space: Writing Instruction, Infrastructure, and Multiliteracies (University of Michigan Press) with Dànielle Nicole DeVoss.

Dr. Andre Samuel, a visionary leader in STEM education and life science research, hails from Washington, DC. After completing his Biology degree at the University of the District of Columbia, he pursued advanced studies in Genomics and Bioinformatics at the esteemed George Washington University. Driven by his passion for scientific exploration, he obtained his PhD in Biology from Duquesne University, where he conducted groundbreaking research on cold shock related proteins in E. coli.

During his doctoral studies, Dr. Samuel founded the S.I.G.M.A Science Mentorship Initiative, a transformative program introducing diverse ninth graders to university labs, fostering their curiosity and paving the way for future careers in scientific research. His research journey encompasses diverse areas such as toxicology, carcinogenicity effects of novel drugs, hookworm vaccine development under the mentorship of Dr. Peter Hotez, and tuberculosis reactivation in non-human primates under the guidance of Dr. JoAnne Flynn.

As the Founder and CEO of The Citizen Science Lab, Dr. Samuel's extraordinary work has earned numerous accolades. In 2015, he was honored with the BMe Leadership Award for his exceptional impact on black males through The Citizen Science Lab. The following year, his lab received four awards for their outstanding participation in Seaperch, and was selected to partake in the prestigious Navy embark program. Dr. Samuel's dedication to service led to him receiving the President's Volunteer Service Award from the Obama Administration in 2016.

In recognition of his unwavering commitment to education, The Citizen Science Lab received the PSAYDEN After School Champion Award and the Iota Phi Foundation's Excellence in Education Award in 2017. Driven by his desire to cultivate transformative leadership, he was chosen as an inaugural member of the esteemed Lead Now Pittsburgh cohort, initiated by Leadership Pittsburgh. Notably, in 2020, Dr. Samuel was honored with the Carnegie Science Center's Leadership in STEM Education award, solidifying his reputation as a trailblazer in the field.

Dr. Samuel's mission revolves around fostering engagement and igniting interest in STEM fields. Believing that hands-on, exciting lab experiences are paramount to cultivating curiosity, he tirelessly leads The Citizen Science Lab, empowering individuals of all backgrounds to explore the wonders of science.

Paul Scherz is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture UVa and an Advisory Fellow at the Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Science, Technology, and Law at Duquesne.

Building on dual training in genetics and moral theology, his research examines the intersection of religious ethics with science, technology, and medicine. He also studies the influence of the Stoic tradition of virtue ethics on Christian ethics. He is the author of Science and Christian Ethics (Cambridge, 2019) and co-editor with Joseph Davis of The Evening of Life: The Challenges of Aging and Dying Well (Notre Dame, 2020). His most recent book, Tomorrow’s Troubles: Risk, Anxiety, and Prudence in an Age of Algorithmic Governance (Georgetown, 2022), examines the role of quantitative risk analysis in contemporary culture and ethics. He is currently working on projects on AI ethics and the ethics of precision medicine.

LaTrenda Leonard Sherrill MBA is the Principal and Owner of Common Cause Consultants. She has raised nearly $9 million for efforts and initiatives in the Pittsburgh region through her professional and volunteer endeavors, including a $750,000 grant to support re-entry efforts in Southwestern Pennsylvania and a $500,000 grant to support local computer science expansion.  LaTrenda founded her own consulting firm, Common Cause Consultants, in 2017 to ensure that the great work happening by community-based organizations could be seen, amplified, and heard by the systems-level players. She currently serves as Board Vice President for Trying Together, and volunteers for the Bartko Foundation and Black Women for Better Education. Recently, LaTrenda finished a community engagement effort with Pitt Cyber to understand the community's perspective on algorithmic accountability.

John P. Slattery is the Director of the Carl G. Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Science, Technology, and Law at Duquesne University. An ethicist, theologian, and historian of science, Slattery works at the many intersections of technology, science, theology, and racism.

Slattery earned a B.S. in computer science from Georgetown University, a master’s degree in theology from Saint Paul School of Theology, and an interdisciplinary PhD in the history and philosophy of science and systematic theology from the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of a wide range of essays in print and online as well as the monograph Faith and Science at Notre Dame (2019), an award-winning book on the history of the evolution controversy in the Catholic Church. He is also the editor of T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Theology and the Modern Sciences (2020), and a producer of many short films from AAAS DoSER, including " Humans and Race: Exploring the Intersections of Science and Racism."

Slattery currently serves both as an expert advisor for the nonprofit AI & Faith, as well as on the AI Research Group at the Vatican Dicastery on Culture and Education, through which he a co-author for the volume Encountering AI (2023). Previously to his work at Duquesne, Slattery directed the “Science for Seminaries” grant program at AAAS DoSER, where he helped to bring forefront science and technology conversations to dozens of Christian seminaries throughout the US and Canada between 2018 and 2022. Slattery is currently researching, writing, and speaking on the intersections of technology ethics and Christian ethics, as well on the history of racism and bias within the intersecting histories of science, technology, and Christian theology.

Rebekah Tweed is the Executive Director of All Tech Is Human and a leader in Responsible Technology. Rebekah was named one of the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics in 2023 and frequently speaks on responsible AI, generative AI, AI policy, and responsible technology careers, talent, and hiring trends. She is the guest editor of Springer AI and Ethics Journal topical collection on the social impacts of AI on youth and children and is the Co-Chair of the IEEE Global AI Ethics Initiative Editing Committee and a member of the Arts Committee.   Previously, Rebekah worked as the Assistant Producer of A BETTER TECH, 2021 Public Interest Technology (PIT) Convention & Career Fair, hosted by New York University and funded by New America's PIT-University Network. Prior to that, Rebekah worked as the Project Manager for NYC law firm Eisenberg & Baum, LLP's AI Fairness and Data Privacy Practice Group, where she examined technology's impact on society, organizing and promoting virtual events to build public awareness around algorithmic discrimination and data privacy issues in New York City and beyond.

Luis G. Vera is Associate Professor and Chair of the Theology Department at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. A native of Venezuela, Vera earned his B.A. from the University of Georgia and an M.T.S. and doctorate from the University of Notre Dame. Vera’s research brings Catholic social teaching and moral theology in engagement with technology ethics and media studies.

He is especially interested in the various interactions between our cognitive habits and our tool use, as well as how these interactions can best help cultivate virtue, contemplation, and the love of neighbor. He has published or presented on topics such as augmented reality, digital surveillance, concealed-carry handgun use, medieval reading practices, and the role of memory in framing attention and media use. His current project explores the rhetorical patterns that can best contribute to the fruitful cultivation of memory and judgment in a digital age.

Shyam Visweswaran, MD, PhD, is a tenured Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Vice Chair of Clinical Informatics with training in biomedical informatics, artificial intelligence (AI) and clinical neurology. His research include the application of AI to biomedicine with a specific focus on patient-specific modeling, causal discovery from biomedical data, AI-based clinical decision support, research-data warehousing, and ontology development.

The Vis Lab is in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Pittsburgh and is affiliated with the Intelligent Systems Program and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute.

His responsibilities include:

• Director, Center for Clinical Artificial Intelligence (CCAI)
• Co-organizer, Machine Learning in Medicine Seminar Series
• Director, Biomedical Informatics Coreof the University of Pittsburgh Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI)
• PD/PI, NCATS' ENACT network
• PD/PI, NIH’s All of Us Pennsylvania

Dr. Wenqi Zhou is an Associate Professor of Information Systems and Technology in the Palumbo Donahue School of Business at Duquesne University. She is also an affiliated faculty with Albert P. Viragh Institute for Ethics in Business and Grefenstette Center. Dr. Zhou received her Ph.D. in Information Systems and Technology Management from George Washington University School of Business in 2013. She studies online user-generated contents, Healthcare IS and economics, information disclosure and transparency, and gender related issues on e-commerce and social media platforms, using econometrics and computational methods. Her works have been published in Journal of MIS, Decision Support Systems, Information & Management, IEEE TIFS, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, IEEE Computer, etc.  

She is a recipient of Grefenstette Center Faculty Scholar, Duquesne Presidential Scholarship Award, Beard Research Fellowship in Ethics, Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research, School of Business Excellence in Scholarship Award, WeB Best Reviewer, and several Best Paper Awards at multiple leading conferences. She served multiple international workshops and conferences in a variety of roles including committee member, associate editor, session chair, among others. Currently, she is an Associate Editor for journal Information & Management.