UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Angelina Busetto is a junior living in Welsh Family Hall at Notre Dame, where she is studying business analytics and global affairs with a concentration in global policy. Originally from Pomona, New York, Busetto is an International Business Scholar on campus with the Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership and Nanovic Institute for European Studies. Busetto enjoys studying the application of emerging technology and examining socioeconomic issues focused around ethics, governance, and inequality and the way they shape our growing world.
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Anna Jang is an economics major with a minor in art history from Long Island, N.Y. She is a Stamps Scholar at Notre Dame and a part of the Glynn Family Honors Program. Her interest is in discovering the business implications AI ethics will have as AI technology continues to advance different industries. On campus, she is also involved with the Student International Business Council, the Federal Reserve Challenge Team, the ND Student Government Executive Cabinet, and volunteers with the Family Justice Center of St. Joseph County.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Fellow
Apryl A. Williams is jointly appointed as Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication & Media and the Digital Studies Institute at the University of Michigan. Her research interests converge at the intersection of popular culture, internet culture, race, gender, and technology. Williams uses a Black feminist lens to probe the intersection of body size and race in online identity movements across digital platforms. Her research draws on critical cultural theory, media studies scholarship, and sociological perspectives to explore the growing acceptance of body positivity and concurrent counternarratives.
Williams' research has been published in leading interdisciplinary journals including Social Media + Society, Information, Communication & Society, the International Journal of Communication, and the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. She also serves as Series Editor of Emerald Studies in Media and Communications where she has co-edited five books on aspects of digital culture such as international media flows, digital inequalities, and digital publics. Williams is also serving as guest editor for a special issue on Digital Life and COVID-19 at the American Behavioral Scientist journal. Her research has also been covered in Time Magazine, Slate, NPR's On the Media, The Guardian, and other notable popular communications outlets.
She was recently co-awarded Mississippi State University's Research to Advance Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access grants program to study the impact of privatized surveillance on communities of color in the U.S. Williams is also a Faculty Associate at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and an Affiliated Researcher at NYU's Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies.
Education
University of Michigan
Assistant Professor of Communication and Media
Job Titles:
- Graduate Research Assistant
Brian Boyd is a doctoral candidate in moral theology at the University of Notre Dame. His interest in the way that personal virtue and communal flourishing are impacted by social structures has led him to focus on economic justice, with particular attention to wages and property rights. Drawing on economics, history, and sociology, his work seeks to describe the situations we face, judge what is lacking from the perspective of integral human development, and offer pathways towards action for justice. Boyd's dissertation on the just wage details the commutative, distributive, and social aspects involved in truly equal exchanges of labor for capital, showing the constrained possibility of offering just wages under the conditions of global capitalism.
Boyd also studies the ethics of science and technology and serves as a consultant for the policy journal The New Atlantis. As a concurrent graduate fellow of the Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center, he is writing a chapter on information technology for the forthcoming textbook Love & Accounting: A Christian Virtue Ethics Approach to Work and Social Justice at Home and in the Professions.
Boyd has earned a B.A. and M.T.S. from the University of Notre Dame, a B.A. from the University of Oxford, and has studied at Georgetown University and the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum). He is a Doctoral Student Affiliate of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, a Sorin Fellow of the Center for Ethics and Culture, and a member of the Society for Christian Ethics and the International Society for MacIntyrean Enquiry.
Education
University of Notre Dame
Job Titles:
- Vice President, AI Ethics
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Fellow With the Developing Virtues
At the University of Notre Dame, Char has served as a fellow with the Developing Virtues in the Practice of Science (DVPS) Project, the John J. Reilly Fellowship Program, and the University Presidential Fellowship in Humanities and Social Sciences. She is currently a fellow with the Responsible Innovation Fellowship (RIF) Program. Her research has been funded by the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts (ISLA), the Graduate Student Union (GSU), and the John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values. In addition, Char has a strong interest in evidence-based pedagogy and enjoys welcoming those outside of academic philosophy into the fold of philosophical discussions. She has received an Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award for her service as a graduate teaching assistant and has been an instructor of record for courses in philosophy of medicine, sustainability and ecofeminism, and technology and innovation ethics.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
- Vice President, Chief Privacy & Trust Officer
Job Titles:
- Graduate Research Assistant
Claire Murphy graduated from Thomas Aquinas College in 2020 with a B.A. in liberal arts and is beginning her third year in Notre Dame's Ph.D. program in History and Philosophy of Science. She's interested in how philosophy of science can employ resources from the history of philosophy, particularly with regard to the interplay between science, art, and nature.
Murphy is working with Paul Blaschko, assistant teaching professor of philosophy, on a comprehensive literature review on the philosophy of work as it relates to technology and capitalism more generally. She is also assisting with a paper on whether there are practical ways to use technology to make workers' lives better in today's world given the various philosophical issues (and obstacles) involved in doing so.
Cody Turner is a postdoctoral fellow whose current work focuses on how emerging wearable and implantable AI cognitive assistant devices-such as smartwatches, smart glasses, smart contact lenses, and neural implants-are poised to affect the mind from a metaphysical, ethical, and epistemological perspective. This research involves examining emerging digital technologies from the standpoint of both techno-optimism and techno-pessimism.
With respect to the former, Turner is particularly interested in drawing on the extended mind thesis in the philosophy of mind to explore how and to what extent emerging augmented reality and brain-computer interface devices can metaphysically extend cognition, knowledge, personal identity, and even intellectual virtue. From the perspective of techno-pessimism, he studies how emerging digital technologies threaten to exacerbate existing ethical and epistemic problems associated with surveillance capitalism, data mining, and personalization algorithms.
Turner has also published on the topics of machine consciousness, cognitive phenomenology, and intentionality. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Connecticut and his B.A. in philosophy from the College of William & Mary, graduating summa cum laude as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
In addition to his appointment at Notre Dame, Turner is a Future of Consciousness Fellow at the Center for the Future Mind at Florida Atlantic University.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Edward S. Knight Chair
John Golden is the Edward S. Knight Chair in Law, Entrepreneurialism and Innovation at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. At the law school, he also serves as faculty director of the Andrew Ben White Center in Law, Science and Social Policy. Professor Golden has taught courses on administrative law, contracts, patent law, and innovation and intellectual property. His main research interests involve questions of intellectual property, innovation policy, and government structure, procedures, and norms of practice.
He is a co-author of Principles of Patent Law (7th ed., 2018). He has authored or coauthored various articles and book chapters, including articles appearing in leading law journals such as the Columbia Law Review, Texas Law Review, and Harvard Journal of Law & Technology. He has also co-authored multiple physics articles published in Physical Review B.
Golden obtained a Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University before attending law school. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Michael Boudin of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and then for Associate Justice Stephen Breyer of the United States Supreme Court. Professor Golden has previously had academic visits at Harvard Business School, Harvard Law School, the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology & Society and Law & Economics Center, and the University of California, Berkeley, College of Engineering.
Education
The University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Dylan Cole is a senior from Indianapolis double-majoring in philosophy and political science with a minor in sociology. He is working with Simone Zhang, assistant professor of sociology, on a project investigating how institutional uses of predictive tools that make inferences about people's future behavior shape people's attitudes about those institutions and people's future behavior in turn.
Job Titles:
- Chairman in Law, Entrepreneurialism and Innovation
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Emma Zurek is entering her junior year at Notre Dame, majoring in psychology with minors in Constitutional studies and sociology. Zurek is particularly interested in studying the criminal justice system and understanding inequalities present in our current system, with hopes to use the information to aid her future career in law. Apart from research, she is a part of several clubs at Notre Dame and serves on the boards of the Psychology Club and Active Minds Notre Dame.
Zurek is working with Simone Zhang, assistant professor of sociology, on a project investigating how institutional uses of predictive tools that make inferences about people's future behavior shape people's attitudes about those institutions and people's future behavior in turn.
Job Titles:
- Managing Director of the Notre Dame - IBM Technology Ethics Lab
- Managing Director, Notre Dame - IBM Technology Ethics Lab
- Notre Dame, Managing Director of the Notre Dame - IBM Technology Ethics Lab
A scholar of digital inequality and an experienced higher education administrator, Erin Flynn Klawitter is the managing director of the Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Lab and an associate professor of the practice at the Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center. She holds a Ph.D. in media, technology, and society from Northwestern University.
Klawitter's research concerning the importance of algorithmic skills to the success of creative entrepreneurs in online marketplaces was published in The International Journal of Communication. The original report of those findings was also recognized with best dissertation awards from both the Communication and Technology Division of the International Communication Association and the School of Communication at Northwestern University. Other research, concerning users' assessment of the credibility of online health information, has been published in the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media as well as Emerald Studies in Media and Communication. She most recently contributed a chapter to Research exposed: How empirical social science gets done in the digital age (Columbia, 2021).
Klawitter's interests are informed by her professional experience leading digital transformation efforts at Notre Dame, where she proposed and held the University's first content strategy role. Prior to joining the Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Lab, she served as associate director of the Notre Dame Scholars' Program, where she managed the University's selection of merit-based scholarship recipients.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Postdoctoral Fellow
Georgina Curto Rex is a postdoctoral fellow whose interdisciplinary research on applied AI ethics focuses on the area of fairness and inclusion.
Among Curto's areas of study, she works on identifying and mitigating bias against the poor, particularly as an aggravator of gender and racial discrimination, and using AI to help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (AI for Good) through a new generation of policymaking that aims to reduce poverty by acting on discrimination.
Her papers have been published in AI & Society and in the Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. She and several coauthors were awarded the AI for Good Track Project Award at the 31st International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
Curto received her Ph.D. in AI ethics in a joint program offered by the Universities of Ramon LLull (IQS School of Management), Deusto, and Pontificia Comillas (ICADE). She also holds a master of research in management sciences from Ramon Llull (IQS School of Management) and an international executive MBA from IE Business School, where she won the award for the Best Entrepreneurial Project.
Previously, Curto worked as a business and strategic design professor at EINA (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and as an entrepreneurship consultant for the Barcelona City Council Local Development Agency.
During summer 2023, she will be a visiting scholar at the Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public at the University of California, Berkeley.
Job Titles:
- Program Director, Tech Ethics by Design Associate Director of the Notre Dame - IBM Technology Ethics Lab
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Imani Mathenge is a junior from Frederick, Maryland, majoring in economics with a minor in computing and digital technologies. She is interested in how biases are present in AI. On campus, she is involved in student government as the Sub-Director of Programming for Student Life and enjoys playing basketball during her free time.
Mathenge is working with Georgina Curto Rex, a postdoctoral fellow, on identifying and mitigating bias against the poor. She is currently focused on identifying how socioeconomic factors influence gender discrimination and gender discrimination influences the socioeconomic situation of women.
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Jeeny Park is a graduate student from Seoul, South Korea, studying business analytics in Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business. She's currently interested in exploring career options in various industries with the goal of making a good connection between her business background and data analytic skills.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
- Notre Dame, Vice President for Research, Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
- Chief Operating Officer, IBM Research Vice President, Exploratory Science and University Collaborations
Job Titles:
- Graduate Research Assistant
Jennifer Schnur is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in Notre Dame's Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society. She received her bachelor's of science in computing and applied mathematics from Saint Mary's College in 2018. After completing her bachelor's degree, she worked at Northwestern Medicine in a patient outcomes coordinator role, analyzing data from the Critical Care Unit, Emergency Department, and Rapid Response Team.
At Notre Dame, Schnur's research broadly focuses on interpretable modeling within the context of human health applications. Currently she works on symbolic regression, which is the supervised machine learning problem of finding a free-form mathematical expression to model a target variable. She has collaborated with Un Kilo de Ayuda (UKA), a non-governmental organization in Mexico focused on improving early childhood development, and Hospital Infantil de México Federico Gómez (HIMFG), a hospital in Mexico City that serves pediatric oncology patients.
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Jing Tong is a senior majoring in psychology and pre-health with a minor in theology. She is passionate about the intersection of ethics and human development, and is excited to join the Lab in its pursuit of person-centered technology. On campus, Tong is also a research assistant in the Narvaez Lab, which is focused on the study of human development from an evolutionary and socio-moral perspective. Outside of academic activities, she serves as the director of art for the Student Union Board and the vice president of Feminist ND. She is originally from upstate New York, although she now calls Farley Hall home.
Ju Yeon Jung is an Auditing AI fellow whose research explores humans' ethical and practical engagement with data. Working at the intersections of the fields of human-computer interaction (HCI), computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), and science and technology studies, she draws on ethnographic and other qualitative methods to study how humans across various settings interact with data to inform the design of ethical and practical human-centered AI tools.
Her research is grounded in an end-user approach that focuses on how technologies can be understood and designed to account for and support real-world practices. Her current project involves exploring how AI audits can enable accounting for the ethical implications of AI systems' technical performance as well as supporting the strategic and reflective use of AI systems in organizations.
Jung's work has appeared in leading scholarly venues including ACM CSCW (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work) and DIS (Designing Interactive Systems) conferences, receiving two best paper honorable mention awards. She holds a Ph.D. in information from the University of Michigan.
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Livia Johan is a senior at Notre Dame studying computer science with a minor in innovation and entrepreneurship. After diving into the study of tech ethics in several University courses, she has developed a keen interest in the practical applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Tools like these that have great potential also carry with them great risk. Johan is driven to explore the ethical questions surrounding current AI/ML technologies as well as AI/ML applications that are yet to come. She believes that a future without these is inconceivable, so it is our duty to develop a culture of responsibility and awareness when using AI/ML in a way that can shape lives.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
- IBM, Controller
Job Titles:
- Program Manager for the Notre Dame - IBM Technology Ethics Lab
- Program Manager, Notre Dame - IBM Technology Ethics Lab
Nicole McAlee is the program manager for the Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Lab. McAlee handles project planning and business management for the Lab, and is delighted to be engaged in the Lab's innovative, timely, and mission-driven work. Prior to joining the Lab, she worked as a senior associate in the Technology Assurance practice at KPMG, serving clients in the energy and financial services industries. McAlee holds a B.B.A. in information technology management from the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, and is pursuing an M.S. in Data Science at Notre Dame. She is from Philadelphia.
Job Titles:
- Graduate Research Assistant
Oghenemaro Anuyah is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in Notre Dame's Computer Science and Engineering program, specializing in human-computer interaction (HCI) research. Fueled by her commitment to making a positive impact on society, she is dedicated to using technology to empower organizations that provide social services, enabling them to better serve their communities and advance equity.
Under the guidance of Ronald Metoyer, a professor of computer science and engineering, Anuyah is exploring the knowledge management and knowledge transfer practices of community-based organizations that offer social services. Their goal is to address the ongoing challenges faced by these organizations and find effective technology solutions that will improve their knowledge management processes and allow them to better serve their communities.
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Renee Ana Aziz is a sophomore business analytics major from San Jose, Calif. She is passionate about technology and business. On campus, she is involved in Walsh Hall Council, lectoring in the Basilica, and avidly attending group fitness classes.
Aziz is working with Ahmed Abbasi, Joe and Jane Giovanini Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations, on a project titled "Using Fair Machine Learning to Calibrate Information Readability to Literacy Levels."
Job Titles:
- Member of the Steering Committee
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Salina Haddadin is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Letters majoring in economics and minoring in history. She is also studying Spanish and has a passion for learning about AI and how it can be used for good. A resident of Farley Hall, she is from Amman, Jordan.
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Sophonie Alcindor is a junior majoring in economics with minors in data science and philosophy, politics, and economics. She is interested in employing computational methods to transform data into actionable knowledge to gain insights into human behavior. Around campus, she works as a TA for the Writing and Rhetoric Tutorial course. She is also active in Notre Dame's Student Union, serving as Judicial Council vice president of peer advocacy.
Job Titles:
- Graduate Research Assistant
Spencer Giddens received his B.S. in applied and computational mathematics and his M.S. in mathematics, both from Brigham Young University. He is currently working on his Ph.D. at Notre Dame in applied and computational mathematics and statistics. His research focus is on differential privacy, a framework for providing mathematical guarantees of privacy for individuals whose sensitive data is used to produce summary statistics and develop statistical/machine learning models.
His recent work on this subject includes developing DPpack, a software package for the R coding language that focuses on providing easily accessible implementations of differential privacy for common statistical procedures. Going forward, Giddens hopes to develop novel methods to apply differential privacy to Individualized Treatment Rules, a class of algorithms that use clinical/medical data to optimally assign treatments to patients with the goal of maximizing the expected treatment benefit.