Upcoming Events

CDEP Symposium: March 14th, 2025

On March 14, 2025, please join us in downtown Chicago for our 14^th Annual International Symposium on Digital Ethics. Register here!

The theme for this year is Accessible Intelligence: designing for a more ethical present. All around the world, there are now countless gatherings discussing the importance of what a future involving AI entails.  A more urgent conversation is incumbent upon us to have, and that is how we can bring about solutions to address the real challenges brought about by lack of access (such as digital divides) to communities, information, and infrastructure. How are we as a society designing ways to deal with gaps in this AI future, meeting shortfalls in labor, skills, and literacies? What does it mean to take action in the context of resistance and refusal as they intersect with technology, culture, ethics, policy, law, health, and more? 

This symposium, to be held in downtown Chicago at Loyola University Chicago’s Water Tower Campus, seeks to convene those who wish to take an active role in answering these questions in our current moment. We welcome participants from academia, industry, and government to join in this crucial conversation across fields of expertise, theory, and practice. 

Registration opens January 6th. 

If you would like to be featured as a sponsor in the symposium program, please contact Dr. Florence M. Chee, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Digital Ethics and Policy fchee@luc.edu

Kyla Williams Tate (Keynote speaker) 

Kyla Williams Tate is a visionary leader at the forefront of digital equity initiatives, currently serving as the inaugural Director of Digital Equity for Cook County Government in the Office of President Toni Preckwinkle. Under Kyla's leadership, Cook County launched its first-ever Digital Equity Action Plan and Digital Equity Map to advance its digital equity goals and create a growing and thriving digital equity ecosystem. In December 2023, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance selected Cook County as a Visionary Digital Inclusion Trailblazer for its digital inclusion efforts.

Kyla's recent recognition as a Marjorie & Charles Benton Opportunity Fund Fellow is a testament to her expertise and leadership. This fellowship, part of the Equitable Broadband in Urban America Research Group, a multi-city, multi-methods project, positions Kyla to offer actionable insights on improving broadband in urban America. Her work with state and federal policymakers, local governments, and digital equity champions is crucial in continuing to build digital equity in these communities. As part of this fellowship, Kyla launched the Digital Determination Podcast, a platform that explores the intersection of trust, digital discrimination, and digital adoption among descendants of the Great Migration.

Kyla has excelled in various tech-focused positions, sharing her expertise in organizational leadership, digital inclusion, and advocacy. Her commitment to promoting digital literacy and expanding broadband access has transformed communities and enhanced opportunities for underserved populations. Before joining Cook County, Kyla worked for the Smart Chicago Collaborative, the implementation team for the City of Chicago's Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). She is a proud graduate of Northern Illinois University, Governors State University, and Mississippi Valley State University. Kyla was recently named a 2024 Distinguished Alumni from Governors State University.

Matthew Dunch

Rev.  Matthew Ian Dunch, S.J. is assistant professor of philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. Dunch specializes in the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Thomas Aquinas. He is particularly interested in Wittgensteinian approaches to philosophy of religion and human/machine interaction. He also writes on the philosophy and history of Jesuit education. Prior to Loyola, Dunch taught at Xavier University in Cincinnati. He earned his doctorate from the University of Oxford.

Patrick Gilger

Rev. Patrick Gilger, S.J. is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Director of the McNamara Center for the Social Study of Religion at Loyola University Chicago. Fr. Gilger’s scholarship uses micro-sociological approaches to study the impact of public religions on secular democracies. In addition to his doctorate, for which he was awarded the Alfred Schutz prize, he holds graduate degrees in both philosophy and theology. Beyond the walls of academia, Fr. Gilger is a frequent public speaker, podcast guest, and an award-winning author whose writing has been featured in America, Vox, La Civiltà Cattolica, Public Seminar, and Church Life Journal. He is currently working on a manuscript as a Research Fellow at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs.

Susan Haarman

Dr. Susan Haarman hails from Louisville, KY, but has lived in Milwaukee, Texas, Berkeley, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and the fine city of Chicago. She is the associate director at Loyola University Chicago’s Center for Engaged Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship where she facilitates faculty development and the university's service-learning program. She has degrees from Marquette University, Loyola University of Chicago, and the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, and previously served as the faith and justice campus minister, also at Loyola University Chicago, where she ran service immersions. In addition to having a PhD in Cultural and Educational Policy Studies, she holds a Masters in Divinity, a Masters in Community Counseling, a certificate in directing the 19th Annotation of the Spiritual Exercises, and is licensed therapist. Her research focuses on the intersection between social justice education, community-based learning, civic identity, and imagination. She is also an improviser and a storyteller.

Dan Kamys

Dan Kamys is Director of Content for the Mason Contractors Association of America overseeing all content, research, and marketing initiatives and has helped position the nonprofit as the thought leader representing the $33 billion industry. He helps lead new MCAA initiatives including the MASONRY STRONG Podcast and the coaching and deployment side of the MCAA's pioneering GEORGE AI System, which debuted its public beta in late 2024. He has taught at Loyola University Chicago since Spring 2024.

Ben Kolak

Ben Kolak is a Chicago-based filmmaker who has led the production company Truth & Documentary since 2012. He enjoys collaborating with small teams on projects designed to encourage social good. He graduated from The University of Chicago in 2006 and is vice board chair of the Media Burn Video Archive.

Tanner Mirrlees

Tanner Mirrlees is an Associate Professor and current Director of the Communication and Digital Media Studies program in the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities at Ontario Tech University. Mirrlees is the author or co-author of numerous publications, including Work in the Digital Media and Entertainment Industries: A Critical Introduction (Routledge, 2024), Global Entertainment Media: Between Cultural Imperialism and Cultural Globalization (Routledge, 2013), Hearts and Mines: The US Empire's Cultural Industry (UBC Press, 2016), and EdTech Inc.: Selling, Automating and Globalizing Higher Education in the Digital Age (Routledge, 2019). Mirrlees is currently co-authoring a book titled Green Dreams: Why Technology Won't Save the World (with Imre Szeman).

Aylissa Ritterhoff

Aylissa Ritterhoff is an intellectual property attorney and concentrates her practice in the areas of trademark law and copyright law. She provides strategic advice on an array of intellectual property issues, including advising on intellectual property assets in complex commercial transactions. Specifically, Aylissa has experience with trademark, copyright, trade secret, and generative AI issues in mergers and acquisitions.

Jason Rosensweig

Jason Rosensweig serves as Senior Policy Advisor at the Illinois Department of Human Rights, and as a Commissioner on the Illinois Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes. with a background in academia, policy, advocacy, public service community- and coalition-building, and public service. He has focused his work for the state on how to expand, strengthen and refine civil rights laws and protections in Illinois, especially in the areas of discrimination, hate crime, social health and conflict, AI regulation and civil rights harms, criminal justice and carceral issues, and increasing access to rights and legal representation. He holds a PhD in political philosophy from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

Josh Shepherd

Josh Shepperd is Associate Professor and Undergraduate Chair of Media Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is author of Shadow of the New Deal: The Victory of Public Broadcasting (University of Illinois Press), which received the 2024 BEA Book Award and placed as a runner-up or finalist for the AJHA, AEJMC History, TLA, and New Deal book awards. Josh is co-writing the "official" History of Public Broadcasting for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and Current, and is the founding Associate Editor of Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture (University of California Press). Josh additionally designs public projects for the Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Board and Recorded Sound Section, and is director of the Radio Preservation Task Force.

John Slattery

John P. Slattery is the Executive 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.

Anita Varma

Anita Varma, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin, where she focuses on media ethics. Her first book, Solidarity in Action: How Ethical Journalism Fights for Social Justice, is under contract with Columbia University Press. Varma’s scholarly work has been published in Journalism Studies, Journalism, Journalism Practice, Media and Communication, and she has made invited contributions to Routledge Companion to Media and Poverty, Handbook of Global Media Ethics, Routledge Companion to Digital Journalism Studies (2nd edition), and Routledge Companion to Global Journalism and Media at the Borders (forthcoming). She leads the Solidarity Journalism Initiative which is a public-facing research-based effort to help journalists improve coverage of marginalized communities. Varma also leads the Solidarity in Sociotechnical Systems Initiative at UT Austin, which supports research focused on incorporating solidarity into ethical AI.

Joseph Vukov

Joe Vukov is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and the Associate Director of the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage at Loyola University Chicago. His research explores questions at the intersection of ethics, technology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind, and at the intersection of science and religion. He is the author of several books, including, most recently, Staying Human in an Era of Artificial Intelligence (New City Press 2024). He serves on the AI Research Group for the Vatican’s Centre for Digital Culture and is the President of Philosophers in Jesuit Education.

**

More speakers, including student panelists, soon to be announced!

Register Here.