Center for the Future of AI, Mind & Society

Susan Schneider, Ph.D., William F. Dietrich Distinguished Professor of Philosophy in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, in collaboration with the Brain Institute, writes about the fundamental nature of the self and mind, especially from the vantage point of issues in philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence (AI), astrobiology, metaphysics and cognitive science. Schneider is also a distinguished scholar at the Library of Congress and NASA. The topics she has written about most recently include the mind-body problem, super intelligent AI, the nature of life, the mathematical nature of physics and whether the mind is a program.
Susan Schneider Website

Elan Barenholtz, Ph.D., is associate director of the Center for the Future of AI, Mind & Society, an associate professor at Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and co-director of the Machine Perception and Cognitive Robotics (MPCR) Lab. Barenholtz earned his doctorate degree in experimental psychology and cognitive science at Rutgers University, New Jersey, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University, Rhode Island. Barenholtz began his career as an experimental psychologist, investigating human perception from a behavioral and cognitive-science perspective and co-founded the MPCR to develop theories and applications of broad brain properties and test them embedded in robotic agents and applied to real-world problems.
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Eric D. Berg, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral researcher in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and fellow at the Center for Future Mind at Florida Atlantic. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota and a graduate degree from the University of Chicago, both of which focused on philosophy of language, formal logic, and the history of analytic philosophy. At the University of Connecticut he received a graduate degree and his doctorate with research focused on the intersection between philosophy of technology, philosophy of language, and social-political philosophy. His current project looks into the philosophical and psychological processes involved with online-radicalization and extremism, with a special focus on how propaganda has adapted to online environments and social media. Eric also has research interests in Africana philosophy, the philosophy and aesthetics of punk-rock and related sub-cultures, and the history and theory of radical political ideologies—especially anarchism and labor movements.

Garrett Mindt, Ph.D., researches philosophy of the mind, philosophy and science of consciousness, philosophy of artificial intelligence (AI), metaphysics, epistemology and related issues in philosophy of science. Before joining Florida Atlantic's Center for the Future of AI, Mind & Society, he worked on the philosophical foundations for a science of consciousness as the Elizabeth R. Koch Research Fellow for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation for Consciousness Studies with his advisers on the project Giulio Tononi and Christof Koch. While conducting this research he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Psychiatry. Mindt received his doctorate degree under the supervision of Tim Crane and Philip Goff at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His doctoral dissertation focused on whether it's possible to give an information-theoretic explanation of consciousness and what philosophical issues there are that arise from such an explanation of consciousness. Before his doctorate, he earned a master's degree at the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, under the supervision of Barry Dainton and his bachelor's degree at the University of Arizona.

Currently Mindt is developing a novel information-theoretic neutral monism, with the goal of tackling two difficult but intimately related problems. The first is consciousness and its place in nature, and how best to give a scientifically and philosophically robust and convincing explanation of consciousness and the mind. The second issue, focused on the metaphysics/ontology of digital existence, whether that be metaverses, virtual reality or augmented reality, and what implications these new spheres of existence have on traditional philosophical questions like personal identity or existence of digital objects/selves, etc.

Mindt said his aim is to develop a more contemporary metaphysics and ontology that can accommodate the changing ontological landscape of the 21st century, and to bring a picture of reality more in line with the contemporary world. The goal is that this picture of reality will help navigate current and future changes in technology, developments in AI, the increasingly sophisticated knowledge of the mind and brain, and related philosophical issues. Ultimately, he said, a better philosophical understanding of these topics will lead to a future where human flourishing is achievable through the careful and ethical nurturing of new technology and increasingly digital lives and selves.

Laurie Carney is the major gifts officer at Florida Atlantic University since December 1999 responsible for development activities within the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, the Center for Holocaust and Human Rights Education (since 2008) and more recently programs related to the Peace, Justice and Human Rights Initiative. With the principle responsibility for gifts of $25,000+ including legacy and endowment gifts, Laurie works strategically in partnership with the Dean, University/College leadership and faculty to identify and inspire fundraising opportunities to enhance Florida Atlantic’s reputation of excellence and to support strategic initiatives.

Laurie worked in nonprofit organizations for 20 years prior to joining Florida Atlantic in professional and management positions that included donor recruitment, fundraising, strategic planning, new business development, special events, and marketing.

Laurie is a Florida Atlantic alumna with a Masters’ degree in Public Administration, and she holds a Bachelor of Science Education degree with a minor in music and emphasis in Therapeutic Recreation from the State University of New York College at Cortland. In 2013 she completed a one-year graduate level Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP) certification from the American College, Bryn Mawr, PA designed to facilitate inspired philanthropic planning and legacy gifts.

Vito Borio is a graduate student in communication and multimedia studies, with a particular focus on rhetorical messaging surrounding artificial intelligence. He has become increasingly involved with the Center for the Future of AI, Mind & Society as the head of PR, a volunteer for events, an attendee at various conferences, and, most importantly, a devoted student. Previously enrolled in the STEM track offered by Florida Atlantic during his undergraduate career, his philosophy courses predominantly entailed the epistemology and ethics of artificial intelligence and consciousness. Additionally, he works as a student consultant for the university's learning services and is now a general teaching assistant for the Dorothy Schmidt College of Arts and Letters.

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Nicholas Baima, Ph.D., is an associate professor of philosophy at Florida Atlantic University, specializing in ancient Western philosophy and ethics. His research bridges classical philosophical ideas with contemporary moral issues, including human enhancement, video game ethics, and the good life. He coauthored Why It’s OK to be a Gamer (2024) with Sarah Malanowski, defending gaming as a meaningful pursuit against common objections, and Plato's Pragmatism: Rethinking the Relationship Between Ethics and Epistemology (2021) with Tyler Paytas, which explores the role of the positive role of epistemic vice in Plato’s ethics. He is currently coediting Virtue Theory and Video Games: Level-Up Your Character (with Sarah Malanowski), examining virtue theory’s application to video games.

Randy D. Blakely, Ph.D., is a professor in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine and executive director of the Brain Institute. Blakely, a native of Columbus, Ga., earned his bachelor’s in philosophy summa cum laude from Emory University, Georgia, followed by a doctorate degree in neuroscience from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Maryland. He also pursued postdoctoral training at the Yale University Howard Hughes Medical Institute Center for Molecular Neuroscience, Connecticut. His research identified the genes encoding targets of widely used antidepressant medications and psychostimulants, including cocaine and amphetamines. As an independent investigator, Blakely has pursued studies of the genetics, structure, regulation and pathophysiology of synaptic transporters and has appeared in more than 300 research articles and scholarly reviews and gained multiple honors. Blakely sets institute priorities for research, education and outreach, oversees the development and acquisition of research infrastructure, leads recruitment efforts for Brain Institute investigators, and leads efforts to encourage translation of neuroscience discoveries.
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Daniel Bolojan is an assistant professor in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters. His research focuses on the application of computational design and deep learning strategies in architecture and architectural design process. Throughout his career, he has taught several design studios and seminars at the Institute of Structure and Design-University of Innsbruck, Florida International University Miami and conducted numerous international workshops and conference workshops, on the application of complex systems and neural networks in architectural design.
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Bolojan is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Applied Arts, Institute of Architecture, Vienna, Austria. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in architecture from the University of Applied Arts, Institute of Architecture, Vienna – Austria, where he studied under the late architect Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher at the Zaha Hadid Vienna Studio. He later joined the research project "Agent-Based Parametric Semiology" (Research Grant Funding- PEEK – FWF. Der Wissenshaftsfonds) as Research Fellow under the supervision of Lead Researcher Patrik Schumacher. The research explores agent-based systems as agent-based life process simulations (architectural crowds) to operationalize the semantic layer within the design process, where the semiological code is defined in terms of the agent's behavioral rules when interacting with a variety of spatial features.

In 2013, he founded his own research studio Nonstandardstudio, where his work and design research developed at the intersection of generative design, computation, multi-agent systems, neural networks and machine learning. The studio focuses on generative design strategies and algorithmic techniques that target the creation of highly complex autopoietic systems that could offer new opportunities for the architectural organization, articulation and signification. These strategies emerge from growth processes, rule-based, multi-agent systems and bottom-up driven design.

Bolojan also joined the internationally renowned architecture office CoopHimmelblau, Vienna, Austria, as computational designer, where he had the opportunity to practice on numerous internationally renowned projects and competitions. Shortly after joining CoopHimmelblau, he held the position of junior associate, computational design specialist and founder and head of Chbl|Code. As head, he was the leading role of developing custom computational design tools (e.g. standalone apps, plugins and add-ons), computational design strategies, virtual and augmented reality applications, machine learning and neural networks applications, as well as robotic fabrication processes. He said he is responsible for the office's current drive to develop deep learning strategies aimed at the augmentation of the designer's native abilities through the development of the DeepHimmelblau Neural Network.

Jessica (Jess) Dickson, Ph.D., is an anthropologist of film, digital media, and their industries. She holds a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Anthropology at Florida Atlantic University where she continues to pursue her interests in emerging visual technologies and their implications for culture. Her current research explores the changing social worlds of international film production, with a focus on big-budget science fiction. She has conducted ethnographic research on film sets and in production offices, where future technologies are imagined, debated, and fabricated for the screen. These fictional/futuristic objects go on to create new desires, anxieties, and expectations in audiences for the future outside the cinema. Broadly, Dickson’s work explores the symbolic and political economies of digital media industries as they shape global imaginaries, material realities, and new forms of labor. Committed to interdisciplinary scholarship, her publication topics include virtual reality, cyborg subjectivity, postcolonial urbanisms, and perspectives on the fourth industrial revolution from the Global South.

Dickson completed her Ph.D. at Harvard University in 2021 and was an Academy Fellow at The Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies until 2022. She earned a Master’s of Social Science degree from the University of Cape Town and has intermittently lived, worked, and conducted research in South Africa since 2009. She completed her B.A. at the University of Illinois in her hometown of Urbana-Champaign while working at her favorite indie video store. It was there that she developed her interest in the social worlds of film beyond the screen, as well as a passion for science fiction that persistently works its way into her research, teaching, and writing.

Chad E. Forbes, Ph.D., is an associate professor of psychology in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and Florida Atlantic's Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute. He earned his bachelor's in psychology (minors in biology and chemistry) from Long Beach State University, followed by his master's and doctorate degree in psychology with emphases in social and cognitive neuroscience from the University of Arizona. Forbes also pursued postdoctoral training in the cognitive neuroscience section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. His research examines the tenets and dynamic modulation of self and identity as a function of biology, memory, context and time. Specifically, Forbes employs a variety of methods, including brain-based measures targeting more non-conscious and affective psychological processes (e.g., EEG, fMRI and genetics) and big data assessments targeting systemic societal factors (e.g., regional levels of bias, segregation and diversity), to better understand how priming negative stereotypes associated with stigmatized individuals in our society, e.g. ethnic minorities and women, may ironically engender situations where these individuals inadvertently reinforce the stereotype. These situations of stereotype reinforcement ultimately can bias the way stigmatized individuals perceive themselves in certain domains and bias how others perceive them to adversely affect various behavioral and health outcomes among the stigmatized. This work has resulted in a federally funded grants and publications in top-tier journals in the field, including Annual Reviews of Neuroscience, Cerebral Cortex and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and recognition from the American Psychological Association as a "Rising Star" in psychology.
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William Hahn, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. Hahn earned his master’s degree in mathematics and computer science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and in 2016 earned his doctorate degree at Florida Atlantic University. Hahn is also the director of the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences, which is dedicated to understanding the principles and mechanisms that underlie complex behavior, and founder and co-director of the Machine Perception and Cognitive Robotics lab. With a background in mathematics and physics, Hahn researches medical imaging, neural networks and deep learning. Hahn was also involved in the creation of Florida Atlantic University’s first and one-of-a-kind-robotic dog pup, Astro.
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Jason Hallstrom, Ph.D., is a professor in the College of Engineering and Computer Science and executive director of the Institute for Sensing and Embedded Network Systems Engineering. Hallstrom earned his doctorate degree from Ohio State University. He develops technology that enables visibility into the physical world for purposes of understanding and automation. The applications range from environmental science, to healthcare, to sculpture and includes embedded network systems, internet-scale sensing infrastructure, data analytics and computer education.
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Frederick Hoffman, Ph.D., is a professor in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. He earned his doctorate degree from the University of Virginia. Hoffman’s research has been infinite groups and the related area of combinatorics. He worked in coding, cryptology and artificial intelligence expert systems in the 1980’s. Hoffman is a founding faculty of the Florida Atlantic computer science department, councilman of the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications and conference chair for 14 of the International Symposia on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics. Hoffman served as president and governor of the Florida section of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), and chaired the national Mathematical Association of America (MAA) committee on mini-courses. In 1997, he received the Douglas D. Dankel II Award for service to the Florida Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Society.
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C. Derrick Huang, Ph.D., is a professor of information technology in the College of Business at Florida Atlantic University. A native of Taiwan, he earned his doctorate degree in computer science and a master’s degree in applied physics from Harvard University in Massachusetts. Huang researches, teaches and consults in technology strategies and information management. Currently, he is actively engaged in cross-disciplinary research in the areas of health care analytics, business applications of disruptive innovations, and technology risk management and policy. Prior to joining Florida Atlantic, he held executive-level positions in business development and strategic marketing at the German multinational automation company Siemens, telecommunications company Nortel, and other high-tech companies.

Scott Kelso, Ph.D., is an Eminent Scholar in Science and professor in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. He also holds the Glenwood and Martha Creech Chair in Science and is founder of the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences. Kelso's research aims to understand how human beings (and human brains) coordinate their behavior on multiple levels, from cells to cognition to social settings. Since the late 1970s, his approach has been grounded in the concepts, methods and tools of self-organizing dynamical systems tailored to the activities of animate, living things (moving, perceiving, feeling, thinking, learning, remembering, etc.), a theoretical and empirical framework called coordination dynamics.
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Ashley Kennedy, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Philosophy in the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College. She earned her bachelor’s in astronomy and physics followed by her doctorate degree in philosophy, both from the University of Virginia. She is passionate about introducing students to philosophical reasoning and teaches symbolic logic, philosophy of medicine, biomedical ethics and theory of knowledge. Kennedy’s two main areas of research are diagnostic reasoning, and global health justice. She has ongoing projects in reproductive health and pharmaceutical ethics. Her recent work has appeared in British Medical Journal, Bioethics, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy and Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice.
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Alan Kunz-Lomelin, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the College of Social Work and Criminal Justice. He earned his doctorate in social work from the University of Texas at Arlington, where he also completed dual graduate degrees in social work and criminology. Dr. Kunz-Lomelin is also a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with extensive clinical experience in delivering behavioral health services within primary care settings. His research focuses on technological innovations, artificial intelligence, healthcare, substance use, mental health, and network analysis. His work explores the intersection of these fields, aiming to advance knowledge and practice in social work through cutting-edge methodologies and interdisciplinary approaches.

Kevin Lanning, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology in the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College. He earned his doctorate degree from the University of California. Lanning teaches psychology of personality, political psychology, behavioral economics and data science. With his experience as an associate professor at Oregon State University, he uses data science to study human nature. Lanning’s work includes three main themes: analysis of language, analysis of social networks and the role of political beliefs in our self-concepts.
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Christopher Maraffi, MFA, is an assistant professor in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters. Maraffi earned his degree in digital arts and new media and a master’s in computer science from the University of California Santa Cruz. His research applies artificial intelligence (AI) tools to extended reality (XR) interface design for edutainment applications such as virtual tour guides at museums and historical sites. In 2019 he received a National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Projects for the Public grant and Epic Games MegaGrant for developing an augmented reality tour of Mitchelville, a reconstruction era historical site and Gullah Geechee heritage site in Coastal South Carolina. The project features an XR production pipeline using generative adversarial networks and game AI to generate realistic 3D historical characters like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Maraffi’s XR projects are informed by novel play design frameworks that incorporate intermedial principles from cinema, theatre and games. Maraffi published “Stage Magic as a Performative Design Principle for VR Storytelling” in 2021 and is currently working on an upcoming book chapter titled “VR Edutainment for Social Justice and the Ethics of Playing Black Bodies.”

Oge Marques, Ph.D., is a professor in the College of Engineering and Computer Science and the advisor for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Interest Group in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine. Marques earned his doctorate degree in computer engineering from Florida Atlantic University. He is the author of 11 books and more than 120 scholarly publications in topics related to visual artificial intelligence. Marques is actively working on the intersection between AI and radiology with colleagues, medical professionals, researchers and students from universities and research labs worldwide.

Marques is a Sigma Xi Distinguished Speaker, a Fellow of the Leshner Leadership Institute of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Tau Beta Pi Eminent Engineer, and a senior member of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).

Warner Miller, Ph.D., is a professor and chair of the physics department in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. He also holds an emeritus position at the Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico since retiring from the Air Force in 2009. Miller earned a doctoral degree in physics in 1986 under the supervision of John Archibald Wheeler at the University of Texas at Austin. His dissertation in general relativity introduced Null-Strut Regge calculus. Previously, he worked in Los Alamos as a J. Robert Oppenheimer Fellow, transitioned to a technical staff member and group leader of T-6 for six years.
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Mehrdad Nojoumian, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the College of Engineering and Computer Science and the director of the Privacy, Security and Trust in Autonomy Lab. He earned his doctorate degree in computer science from the Cheriton School of Computer Science at University of Waterloo, Canada.

Nojoumian’s research interests lie in cybersecurity, privacy, artificial intelligence (AI) and society, human autonomy interactions, and cross-disciplinary research on the intersections of computer science and other disciplines. His featured research projects focus on trust between human and self-driving cars, private planning and coordinating among autonomous drones, reputation-based cryptocurrency mining and impact of malicious attacks on robotic systems. He has been a technical program committee member of interdisciplinary conferences such as the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and Association for Computing Machinery conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Society and the conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security, among others.

Andrzej Nowak, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. His primary focus is on the dynamical approach to social psychology, social influence, computer simulations of psychological and social processes, psychology and new technology, conflict and behavioral economy. He has conducted research concerning social influence, social transitions, social dilemmas, self and emotions and neural networks. His current research includes synchronization, social influence, social change, culture, conflict and radicalization. He also works on modeling the dynamics of cultures.
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Dimitris A. Pados, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Charles E. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in Engineering. He is the director of the Center for Connected Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence as well as the Acting Director of Florida Atlantic University's I-SENSE division. Dr. Pados specializes in Communications Theory & Systems and Machine Learning & Adaptive Signal Processing.
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Ata Sarajedini, Ph.D., is a professor at Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and a Bjorn Lamborn Endowed Chair in Astrophysics. Sarajdini studied at Yale University for undergraduate and graduate school, earning his doctorate in astronomy in 1992. Prior to Florida Atlantic, he worked at the University of Florida as a professor and associate dean. In January of 2017, Sarajedini arrived at Florida Atlantic as the dean of the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. His research interest includes resolved stellar populations, star clusters, galactic structure and evolution, stellar evolution and dwarf galaxies. He’s passionate about connecting with local communities, lifelong learning societies, and high schools to bring a better understanding of science to the general public, including what science is and what it is not. Sarajendini lives by the following motto: “Science is for Everyone”.
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Richard Shusterman, Ph.D., is a Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities, professor of philosophy and English, and director of the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture. He earned a bachelor's degree in English and philosophy, and later a master’s degree in philosophy, magna cum laude, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Later, he earned a doctorate degree in philosophy from St. John’s College of the University of Oxford in England. He has held academic appointments in Paris, Berlin, and Hiroshima and was awarded senior research Fulbright and National Endowment for the Humanities. His research covers many topics in the human and social sciences with particular emphasis on questions of philosophy, aesthetics, culture, language, identity, and embodiment.
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Gerald Sim, Ph.D., is a professor in the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies, and I-SENSE Ethics Fellow at FAU, where he teaches courses on digital media infrastructure and the politics of AI, in addition to core courses in film studies. He is the author of Screening Big Data: Films that Shape Our Algorithmic Literacy (Routledge 2024), and articles about digital culture, data politics, and new media history in Television & New Media, Convergence, Projections, and the collection The Netflix Effect (Bloomsbury 2016). His work can also be found in Discourse, Rethinking Marxism, positions, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Asian Cinema, and Film Quarterly. His first two books are Postcolonial Hangups in Southeast Asian Cinema: Poetics of Space, Sound, and Stability (Amsterdam UP 2020), and The Subject of Film and Race: Retheorizing Politics, Ideology, and Cinema (Bloomsbury 2014). His current research looks at media framings of the US-China AI War, and the tech industry’s attempts to automate creative work.
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Ruth Tappen, EdD, is professor and Christine E. Lynn Eminent Scholar in Florida Atlantic’s Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing. She is an experienced researcher and scholar who has conducted extensive research on issues related to care of individuals with Alzheimer’s and related dementias and care transitions, particularly reduction of hospital readmissions of nursing home residents that are both costly and risky for the resident.

Tappen recently completed a project called Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, to help NHs reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions, traveling and meeting with long-term care providers across the Southeastern U.S.

She also recently received a $5 million grant from National Institute on Aging to test a sensor system in cars to detect early subtle signs of change in cognition in older drivers.

Mark Tunick, Ph.D., a professor of political science in Florida Atlantic’s Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, is a political theorist who writes and teaches about privacy, punishment and other ethical and legal topics. He received his doctoral degree in political science from University of California, Berkeley, and previously taught at Stanford University, California. He is interested in the threat posed to reasonable expectations of privacy by surveillance in public places, the use of facial recognition technologies, and widespread collection of data for later use. Recently he developed an interdisciplinary undergraduate course on ethical issues raised by artificial intelligence such as liability issues of self-driving cars or drones, economic impacts of artificial intelligence ethical concerns with predictive analytics using big data and the ethical status of robots.
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Robin Vallacher, Ph.D., is interim chair and professor of psychology in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. He is also a research associate in the Center for Complex Systems, University of Warsaw, Poland, and a research affiliate in the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict and Complexity at Columbia University, New York.

Vallacher has been a visiting scholar at University of Texas at Austin; Claremont Graduate University, California; University of Bern, Switzerland; Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research in Munich, Germany; and University of Montpellier, France. He has received funding for his research from the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Science Foundation, the Polish Science Foundation, the Max-Planck Institute for Psychological Research, and the James S. McDonnell Foundation.

He has authored or edited nine professional books, authored a social psychology text, and written more than 150 book chapters and journal articles. He has presented the results of his research at more than 150 national and international conferences and delivered invited addresses at more than 20 universities in the United States and Europe.

Vallacher and his colleagues at several universities were among the first to adapt principles and methods from complexity science and dynamical systems to investigate a wide range of topics in personality and social psychology, including self-concept, self-regulation, mindfulness, social judgment, social influence, close relationships, stereotyping and prejudice, sport psychology, social change and international conflict. Today he is widely recognized as a leader in this redirection of the field.

Kevin Wagner, Ph.D., professor and department chair in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, researches and teaches judicial politics, political behavior, legislative behavior, American political development, media and politics and American political thought. The main theme animating his research, he said, is his interest in understanding political change in democratic systems including the shifts caused by technology such as the Internet.
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Jerry McNerney, Ph.D., is a congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. McNerney, who has a doctorate in mathematics, co-authored the book “Clean Energy Nation: Freeing America From the Tyranny of Fossil Fuels” (2011). Intrigued by issues in ethics and philosophy of mind, he said he is currently writing a book on the ethics of emerging technologies called “Human Survival Ethics.”
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Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica, system for modern technical computing; WolframAlpha, algorithms, knowledgebase and AI technology; and Wolfram Language. He is also author of “A New Kind of Science,” originator of the Wolfram Physics Project and founder and CEO of Wolfram Research. Throughout four decades, he was a pioneer in the development and application of computational thinking – and responsible for many discoveries, inventions and innovations in science, technology and business.
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Lenore Blum, Ph.D., is an emeritus distinguished career professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Pennsylvania, where she is consulting co-director of the Conscious Artificial Intelligence Center. She is also a professor-in-residence in the department of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, and visiting chair professor at the Center on Frontiers of Computing Studies, Peking University, China.

Her interests turned to non-standard models of mathematics, and of computation. As a graduate student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she showed how to use saturated model theory to get new results in differential algebra. Later, she collaborated to develop a foundational theory for computing and complexity over continuous domains such as the real or complex numbers. The theory generalizes the Turing-based theory (for discrete domains) and has been fundamental for computational mathematics.

Blum is internationally known for her work in increasing the participation of girls and women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and said she is proud that CMU has gender parity in its undergraduate computer science program.

Manuel Blum, Ph.D., is an emeritus Bruce Nelson professor of computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University), Pennsylvania, where he is co-director of the conscious Artificial Intelligence center, professor emeritus, in the department of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, and visiting chair professor at the Center on Frontiers of Computing Studies, Peking University, China.

Blum said he was motivated to understand the mind/body problem since he was in second grade when his teacher told his mom she should not expect him to get past high school. As an undergrad at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he spent a year studying Sigmund Freud and then apprenticed himself to the great anti-Freud neurophysiologist Warren S. McCulloch, who became his intellectual mentor.

Blum is one of the founders of complexity theory, a Turing Award winner and has mentored many in the field who have chartered new directions ranging from computational learning, cryptography, zero knowledge, interactive proofs, proof checkers and human computation.

Edwin L. Turner , is professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University, New Jersey. He also serves as co-chair of the National Astronomical Observatory of (NAOJ)-Princeton Astrophysics Collaboration Council (PACC).

After receiving a bachelor’s in physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1971 and a doctoral degree in astronomy from California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1975, he spent brief periods at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and on the astronomy faculty at Harvard University, Massachusetts, before joining the Princeton faculty in 1978. Since 2008, he has also held an affiliate scientist appointment at the University of Tokyo’s Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe. He has carried out extensive astronomical observations at Palomar Observatory, California; Kitt Peak National Observatory, Arizona; National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array and Apache Point Observatory, both in New Mexico, NAOJ’s Subaru Telescope and with the Hubble Space Telescope.

Turner has served on a variety of national professional committees including nine years each on the board of directors of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy and the Space Telescope Institute Council (which he chaired for three of those years). He also served as director of the Apache Point Observatory 3.5-meter Telescope for nine years and on the board of governors of the Astrophysical Research Consortium for an additional eight years. His sabbatical leaves have taken him to Caltech, Harvard, MIT, NAOJ, the University of Melbourne, Autralia, and the University of Tokyo.

Working extensively in both theoretical and observational astrophysics, he has published more than 260 research papers with concentrations on topics including binary galaxies, groups of galaxies, large scale structure, dark matter, quasar populations, gravitational lensing, the cosmic x-ray background, the cosmological constant, exoplanets, astrobiology and the origin of life, frequently in all of these areas with an emphasis on statistical analyses.

His recent teaching activities at Princeton include courses in cosmology, astrobiology and in media coverage of science, and he has been a member of the university’s committee for statistical studies since 1992. Recently he has been an active participant in the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative and in the organization of YHouse, Inc. project.

Apart from astrophysics and statistics, he has significant academic interest in questions involving abiogenesis, artificial intelligence, cellular automata, the limits of reductionism, the hard problem of consciousness and epistemology. He pursues these interest in large part via adjunct appointments in the program in interdisciplinary studies at the Institute for Advanced Study and Center of Theological Inquiry, both in New Jersey.

Bernard J. Baars, Ph.D., is co-founder and editor in chief of the Society for MindBrain Sciences, an affiliated fellow, and former senior fellow, in theoretical neurobiology at The Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, Calif. He is best known as the originator of the global workspace theory, a theory of human cognitive architecture and consciousness.

Baars is recipient of the 2019 Hermann von Helmholtz Life Contribution Award from the International Neural Network Society, recognizing outstanding contributions in the field.

Natasha Vita-More, Ph.D., is founder of transhumanist studies and former professor of innovation, ethics and communication at University of Advancing Technology, Arizona. Her experience in the field of foresight establishes principles and practices for assessing humanity's potential futures. Her proficiency as a professor of ethics has produced high-level scholarship toward understanding the challenges societies face.

Vita-More appears in more than two dozen televised documentaries, is published in numerous articles and books, innovated the seminal whole-body prosthetic, and co-founded a global cultural movement. She was called “an early adapter of revolutionary changes” by Wired, 2000, a “role model for superlongevity” by Village Voice, 2001, and also “advocates the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities” by Politico, 2017.

Known as the co-founder of the transhumanist movement, introducing the seminal field of human enhancement for longevity in academics, developing the theory of the regenerative generation, Vita-More continues to speak and write about cultural, philosophical and socio-political issues concerning what it means to be human, and the need for lifelong learning to better understand the current environment and our place in it and to develop trajectories for where we are headed in the near and distant future.

Mark Bailey, Ph.D., is the department chair for cyber intelligence and data science at the National Intelligence University in Maryland. His research interests include complex systems and intelligence, artificial intelligence (AI), ethics and operationalization and global catastrophic risk. He has worked on several AI related programs within the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. intelligence community. Bailey is also a major in the U.S. Army Reserve.

Cody Turner, Ph.D., is a doctoral student at the University of Connecticut, studying philosophical issues in artificial intelligence, including its relation to embodied cognition, intellectual virtue and human flourishing. Turner is the creator of a podcast network called Shelter from the Storm, which features a technology and philosophy podcast series, Tent Talks. He has also published chapters in “The Oxford Handbook of the Ethics of AI” and “The Age of Artificial Intelligence.”
Go to Cody Turner Website

Dan Turello is a writer, cultural historian, and photographer. He earned a master's in politics from The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., and a doctorate in romance languages and literatures from Harvard University. His articles and reviews have been published by Renaissance Studies, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Rassegna dell'Esercito, Italica, and Italian Studies, among others. His book Connection: How Technology Can Make us Better Humans is forthcoming with the No Limits Series at Columbia University Press.

Carol Gould, Ph.D., is a professor in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters. Gould earned her doctorate degree in philosophy from the University of Buffalo, State University of New York, SUNY Buffalo, where she had also received her bachelor’s in philosophy, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

Gould specializes in ancient philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of psychiatry. She publishes widely in these areas, as well as in Japanese philosophy.

She also co-edited “Art, Ethics and Representations of the Holocaust,” published in 2014.

In addition to her membership in various philosophical organizations, she has served on editorial boards and as peer reviewer for several academic presses and professional journals.

Kyle A. Kilian is a leader in intelligence analysis, multidisciplinary research, and technology modernization in the national security enterprise. He is the deputy director of the Transformative Futures Institute (TFI), a research organization dedicated to applying strategic foresight to anticipate risks from emerging technologies with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI). Kyle has served for over a decade in the defense and intelligence community (IC) in strategic, tactical, and joint operational environments and as an adjunct faculty at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. His research interests lie at the intersection of AI, complex adaptive systems, and international security, with expertise in exploratory futures modeling. Kyle is a mentor at the Foresight Institute and a 2022 fellow with the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (GCRI) and routinely collaborates with the National Intelligence University (NIU) on research into over-the-horizon risks from AI.

Kyle earned an M.S. in Science and Technology Intelligence from the National Intelligence University in 2021, an M.A. in International Affairs from the American University in 2015, a B.A. in Geography, and a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Miami in 2005.

Rachel St. Clair, Ph.D., aims to work on architectures that produce generally intelligent agents. She received her doctorate degree from the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and Graduate Neuroscience Training Program, Charles E. Schmidt College of Sciences. St. Clair researches artificial general intelligence, focusing on computer vision, natural language processing, reinforcement learning, complex systems and agent-based modeling. Her current work is focused on semiconductor solutions for artificial general intelligence and hyperscale computing with Simuli Inc.
Go to Rachel St. Clair Website

Kevin Frazier is the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the UT Austin School of Law and a Contributing Editor at the Lawfare Institute. He previously served as an assistant professor at St. Thomas University College of Law. Kevin's research examines the intersection of the law, emerging technology and human flourishing. His work has been published in leading law journals including the Tennessee Law Review and popular outlets such as the MIT Tech Review.

Sarah Malanowski, Ph.D., is Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy at the Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University. She received her doctorate degree in the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology program from Washington University in St. Louis. She specializes in Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Bioethics, and Philosophy of Games, but her research spans over and draws influence from many different subfields of philosophy, including philosophy of mind, ethics, and ancient philosophy. Some of her recent projects involve defending the role of playing video games in the good life and examining the philosophical implications of the GLP-1RA class of weight loss drugs. She is the author of the book, Why it is Okay to be a Gamer, with Nicholas Baima.

Julia Mossbridge, Ph.D., is an affiliate professor in the department of Biophysics and Physics at University of San Diego, a senior consultant with Tangible IQ, the co-founder and board chair of TILT: The Institute for Love and Time, the founder of Mossbridge Institute and an author and co-author of multiple books and scientific articles related to artificial intelligence, consciousness and human potential. Her post-doc was in cognitive neuroscience (Northwestern U), her doctorate was in communication sciences and disorders (Northwestern U), her graduate degree was in neuroscience (UC San Francisco), and she was awarded her undergraduate degree in neuroscience with highest honors (Oberlin College). She developed both the Dynamic Relational Learning-Partner Model and the "Binary Stream System Designation Approach."

Jonathan Iwry, J.D., is a fellow at the Accountable AI Lab at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His work examines the implications of emerging technologies for fundamental legal concepts and decision-making frameworks in law and policy. He has authored or co-authored articles and book chapters on topics that include machine learning in psychological data analysis, the ethics of noninvasive brain stimulation, the legal implications of the metaverse, FDA’s use of its emergency powers during the COVID-19 pandemic, behavioral economics in drug policy, and the law of outer space. His work has been published in the Food and Drug Law Journal, Bloomberg Law, Psychological Methods, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, the Negotiation Journal (of Harvard's Program on Negotiation), and the Oxford Handbook of Secularism. He was previously a corporate associate at the law firm Ropes & Gray LLP. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School and B.A., summa cum laude, in Philosophy and History from the University of Pennsylvania. During law school, he served as a teaching fellow in two Harvard College courses—Michael Sandel’s “Justice” course and Joshua Greene’s course on AI ethics—and received awards from the university for excellence in teaching. He is also a ten-time winner of the Supreme Bars freestyle rap tournament in Brooklyn.

David Sahner is a physician-scientist with a longstanding focus on the intersection of AI, machine learning, and modeling with medicine and biological sciences. He previously held several senior positions in the biotechnology industry, and served as senior clinical director in the computational science division of SRI International, formerly the Stanford Research Institute. There, he was the technical lead for an international workshop on the potential intersection of AI and consciousness. More recently, Sahner was a senior adviser to the National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he was involved in the analysis of real-world data, data science and machine learning. He has published work on the potential link between AI and consciousness and wrote two online NCATS/NIH lecture series on machine learning, including a detailed mathematical overview of advanced topics. Sahner is also a published poet.

Claudius Osei is a doctoral student with the Graduate Neuroscience Training Program in Florida Atlantic’s Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute. He was born and raised in Hamburg, Germany, and moved to the United States during his senior year of high school to pursue his passion for American football. After graduating from Florida State University, he spent several years playing professional football with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New York Giants. His passion for studying the brain developed after realizing that athletic performance is about physical and mental processes.

Daniel Van Zant is a Ph.D. student in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience at Florida Atlantic's Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute with the Neuroscience Graduate Program (NGP). He received a B.S. in Cognitive Sciences from Florida State University.
Go to Daniel Van Zant Website

Jennifer Giordano is a doctoral student with the Graduate Neuroscience Training Program in Florida Atlantic’s Stiles-Nicholson Brain institute and the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences. She received a bachelor’s degree and master's degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina Wilmington where she conducted her thesis on the correlates of brain activity and trauma symptoms. She is a member of the Machine Perception Cognitive Robotics Lab and is interested in applying principles of neuroscience to concepts in machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Kori Citrin is a doctoral candidate at Florida Atlantic University's Integrative Biology and Neuroscience program working at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience and a student of the International Max Planck Research School for Synapses and Circuits. Her research uses two-photon calcium imaging to investigate how neurons in the hippocampus encode time. Prior to moving to Florida, she earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Connecticut.

Megan Spring is a current doctoral student in Florida Atlantic University's comparative studies program specializing in 19th century American literature and the metaphysics of consciousness. Her broader interests in the imbrications between literature and artificial intelligence, the nature of identity, and Cartesian thought.

Subhosit Ray is interested in every system as computation and how evolving computation rules leads to emergence of new behaviors. He worked in biotechnology, genetic cloning and neuro microscopy, eventually refocusing on cognition and attention. Ray said he would like to learn more about cellular automata, artificial life and DNA computing at the Machine Perception Cognitive Robotics Lab in the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and discover the rules that lead to emergence of consciousness.

Ty Roachford is a Ph.D. student in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience at Florida Atlantic's Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute with the Neuroscience Graduate Program (NGP). He received a B.S., Neuroscience and Behavior from Florida Atlantic University earned in 2017.
Go to Ty Roachford Website

Morgan Benavidez is a master's student studying artificial intelligence in the department of electrical engineering and computer science in the College of Engineering and Computer Science. Benavidez is working in the Machine Perception and Cognitive Robotics Laboratory in the Rubin and Cindy Gruber Sandbox under the supervision of William Hahn, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of mathematics in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science.

Misha Klopukh is an undergraduate student pursuing a degree in mathematics. He has been a researcher at the Machine Perception and Cognitive Robotics Laboratory in Florida Atlantic’s Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science since 2018, working on building novel models for computation and learning, including dual and hyperdual numbers, hyper-dimensional computing, compressed sensing, cellular automata computers and more. A programmer since childhood, Klopukh said he seeks to change the way humans think about computation as a subject, treating it more as an exploration of natural and constructed worlds rather than a means to a particular end.

Rachid Lopez is an undergraduate student pursuing a degree in philosophy. He is interested in specializing in the areas of philosophy of mind and the study of consciousness, as well as philosophy of artificial intelligence. One of his interests of research is in cybernetic organisms and its philosophical implications.

Matt Trask specializes in computer and robotics education in the Rubin and Cindy Gruber Sandbox. He hosts a weekly robotics meetup where students gain hands-on experience learning about robotics software and hardware. He is also the proud mentor of Florida Atlantic's Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers Robotics Club, which is now an award-winning team.

Trask is a Florida Atlantic alumnus, having earned his bachelor’s degree in general studies, with coursework in computer science and computer engineering, and a master's in education.

Carson Williams is an undergraduate student double majoring in Philosophy and Studio Art and minoring in Computer Science. His work in philosophy focuses on aesthetics as it relates to epistemology and conscious experience. His work in studio art focuses on sculptural and installation works, often centering themes of digital vs physical worlds and implementing digital artistic methods with traditional physical methods of artmaking. His current research focuses on the conscious processes underlying artistic practice, the link between conscious experience and the conceptual content of perception, as well as Immanuel Kant's theory of aesthetic ideas.

Justin T. Sampson is a doctoral student in Florida Atlantic University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, holds a bachelor's and master's degree in computer science, a master's degree in psychology, and an education master's degree in science and the public. His research focuses on ethical issues in artificial intelligence, including the application of Integrated Information Theory to the prospect of AI consciousness. Sampson also works as a software engineer at Broadcom.