2025 Plenary Sessions
Information on our 2025 plenaries will be available closer to the conference date.
2024 Plenary Sessions*
President's Welcome and Neural Net Aesthetics
Thursday, September 19, Noon–1:15 PM CT
Ms. Eileen Skyers, MA
In this presentation, media art curator Eileen Isagon Skyers delves into the innovative work of artists such as Amelia Winger Bearskin, Stephanie Dinkins, Ian Cheng, and Moreshin Allayari, who are using AI in novel ways to challenge and expand the boundaries of creativity. AI datasets are not neutral repositories, rather, they are coded with the biases of those who create them, thus becoming vehicles for certain narratives over others. Artists working with AI today are not only critics or observers who bear witness to this transformational moment in history—they are also active participants in world building and figuring—in reshaping or reimagining alternative futures. We hope that audience members will leave this presentation with a deeper understanding of the aesthetic and ethical implications for both curating and creating AI art.
Environmental Justice, Technology, and Health Equity: Issues, Challenges, and Solutions
Friday, September 20, 11:30 AM–12:45 PM CT
Dr. Sacoby Wilson, PhD MS
Communities of color and low-income communities across the country have been impacted by environmental, climate, and energy injustices due to systemic racism and structured poverty. In addition, many of these communities experience a high concentration of psychosocial stressors and lack of access to high quality salutogenic infrastructure including health care infrastructure. In this session, Dr. Wilson will discuss the history of environmental justice issues in the United States including the relationship between environmental injustice and health inequity and how climate change is exacerbating these inequities. He will describe how technology in various forms has driven environmental injustice and health inequities but also will detail through examples from his work and other related scholarship, how technology can be successfully used to understand and address environmental injustice and help to advance health equity.
Good Days, Bad Days, and Reflections on Reducing Workplace Violence in Healthcare Settings
Saturday, September 21, 3:15 PM–4:30 PM CT
Dr. John "Jack" Rozel, MD MSL DFAPA
The hospital is a place to care and a place to heal, a place to learn and a place to teach, a place for solace in times of crisis, and a place to care for the most in need. Achieving that mission with both the exacting technical precision demanded by modern medical practice and the humanity and compassion intrinsic to a place of healing is challenging in and of itself – achieving that mission in an increasingly violent and hostile environment is one of the greatest challenges modern medicine faces. Ethicists can play a vital role in helping front line clinicians and executive leaders reconsider how they cultivate environments that are both healing and secure.
*All times listed are Central Daylight Time (CDT).