Ethics & Tech Conference 2025

Where AI meets humanity in healthcare: What's next? 

The tools of artificial intelligence offer the potential for healthcare to become more effective and equitable. But as we race to embrace these advances, are we truly ensuring that we do no harm? Thought leaders from across disciplines will discuss the complex issues that emerge as we harness AI for health. Join us in an important conversation grounded in Seattle University’s Jesuit tradition of facing challenges with reflection and contemplation.

SESSION VIDEOS

MEET THE SPEAKERS

Christof Koch

Christof Koch, President, Chief Scientific Officer and Meritorious Investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, whose writings and investigations integrate theoretical, computational and experimental neuroscience with philosophy and contemporary trends, in particular artificial intelligence. He is known for believing that the mechanisms behind consciousness will be able to be scientifically explained using currently-available tools of neurobiology, among other theories about the nature of consciousness in the context of networked complexity.

Vin Gupta

Vin Gupta, Critical Care Pulmonologist, Virginia Mason; Chief Medical Officer in Pharmacy, Amazon; Affiliate Assistant Professor, Institute of Health Metrics, University of Washington; and Critical Care Air Transport Physician and Major in the United States Air Force Reserve Medical Corps Sciences, has a multi-faceted perspective on global public health care and critical care response. His systems-oriented experiences give him an interesting perspective on the potential applications of AI in healthcare.

Blythe Adamson

Blythe Adamson, Head of Outcomes Research at Flatiron; Founder, Infectious Economics; and Affiliate Professor, UW is a scientist, epidemiologist and health economist using AI to compare drug and policy effectiveness with the goal of accelerating research and improving patient outcomes. Her team has pioneered deep learning language models for data extraction, and she served as lead data scientist in the West Wing of The White House and advised public and private institutions on disease prevention.

Ty Kayam

Ty Kayam, Principal Corporate Counsel for Health and Life Sciences, Microsoft; Adjunct Professor of Law, Seattle University, advises product, engineering and data science teams on legal issues related to the development of AI and other emerging technologies for the health and life sciences industries. She currently holds leadership positions on the Health Information Technology committee of the American Health Law Association and the eHealth, Privacy, and Security group of the American Bar Association.

Mjaye Mazwi

Mjaye Mazwi, Co-Director, Heart Center, Division Head, Cardiac Critical Care Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Hospital, uses machine learning to computationally model high resolution patient phenotypes and state-based characterizations for critically ill pediatric patients. His work in AI is intimately connected to his patient care.

Jay Nanduri

Jay Nanduri is the CTO and Co-Founder of Truveta.

For 20+ years, Jay Nanduri has been a Microsoft Technical Fellow with over 25 patents. He is committed to structuring health data to better support equitable and innovative healthcare. He strives to use AI creatively to enable Truveta’s large consortium of partners to use data productively.

Stephanie Simmons

Stephanie Simmons draws on her background in law, regulatory compliance, ethical thought and technology as she considers the implications of a robust innovation pipeline merging tech, products, research and design in the fields of health and life sciences. Her group pursues interdisciplinary collaborations that drive real-world impact.

Alex John London

Alex John London, K&L Gates Professor of Ethics and Computational Technologies, Carnegie Mellon University

An elected fellow of the Hastings Center, Alex John London is co-lead of the K&L Gates Initiative in Ethics and Computational Technologies, Director of the Center for Ethics and Policy, and Chief Ethicist at the Block Center for Technology and Society, all at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Group on Ethics and Governance of AI among other advisory positions.

Joanna Black

Joanna Black is currently general counsel for Madrona Ventures Group. She has worked with public and venture-backed companies in the software, technology, and biotechnology industries for the last 25 years, including as VP of Xcyte Therapies, Inc.

Examining AI Through an Ethical Lens

The focus of the conference, Will Intelligent Machines Prepare the Next Workforce?, exploredthe role of AI in preparing workers for short- and long-term success, the implications for the shifting educational landscape and the impact on the workforce. (Credit: Tara Lee, "Examining AI Through an Ethical Lens," SU Newsroom, June 29, 2023).

PHOTOS

MEET THE SPEAKERS

Blaise Aguera y Arcas

Vice president, Google Research

Father Paolo Benanti

AI ethics advisor to Pope Francis and a professor at Pontificia Universita Gregoriana

Lori Lewis

Operations leader of the Technology Trust Ethics team at Deloitte