Founding Members

is an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at University of Washington and the Principal Research Data Scientist at KenSci, an Artificial Intelligence in healthcare-focused company in Seattle. He has published over 50 research papers in the fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence and computational social science. Muhammad Aurangzeb graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a Bachelors in Computer Science and holds the PhD in computer science from the University of Minnesota.

is a computer scientist and the founder of Skillspire, an education startup headquartered in Bellevue that offers technology boot camps for immigrants, refugees and women, largely taught by part-time instructors who work in technology.  Yasmin was an early visionary member of MAPS and remains active in leadership there.”

is Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Seattle Pacific University. He formerly taught and served as research director at a leading university in Honduras. His work focus includes e-government and e-learning.

is a Research Associate at the Human-Robot Interaction Lab at Tufts University and also a lecturer in the Computer Science Department there.  His work at Tufts focuses on the ethical evaluation and design of AI systems for interactive contexts, including how moral norms will shape how social robots are judged. Thomas is an author and co-author of numerous peer-reviewed articles on AI ethics and human-robot interaction, as well as a co-author of “Ethics for Psychologists: A Casebook Approach.”  He holds a bachelors of arts degree in classics and philosophy from Stanford University, and a masters of theological studies from Harvard Divinity School. He is nearing completion of his PhD dissertation for Harvard’s Committee on the Study of Religion.

leads the Language and Information Technologies Team of scientists and engineers at Microsoft Research Technologies, a new R&D organization within Microsoft Research.  His team focuses on harnessing AI to understand how people interact with information systems and develop new experiences to empower people to be more productive.

is an Associate Professor of Theology and Director of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.  Professor Bacote‘s areas of teaching and research include theology and culture, theological anthropology, and faith and work.  His numerous published works include “The Political Disciple: A Theology of Public Life” and “Erasing Race: Racial Identity and Theological Anthropology – Black Scholars in White Space”. Professor Bacote is a graduate of the Citadel, holds a masters degrees in divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and a masters degree in philosophy and PhD in theological and religious studies from Drew University.

teaches business ethics at Seattle Pacific University and the University of Washington, and is a former senior executive at Microsoft. He is a graduate of the California Institute of Technology, the Stanford Business School, Fuller Theological Seminary, and holds a Ph.D. in Theological Ethics from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. An ordained Presbyterian minister and Parish Associate of University Presbyterian Church, Bruce also holds five patents from his work as a startup entrepreneur.

is currently exploring a number of AI opportunities and areas of interest as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) in Seattle. He was previously the Founder and CEO of Seattle-based travel personalization startup, Utrip, which utilized AI and human experts to help travelers plan highly personalized trips. Gilad grew up in Israel and moved to Washington in the late 90’s with his family when his dad joined a startup. Gilad is a graduate of the UW Foster School of Business where he obtained both his undergraduate and masters degrees. Gilad is passionate about travel, technology, food, innovation, and history and is a congregant at Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Seattle.

is a Seattle attorney with 25 years of experience in counseling clients and litigating claims related to technology, risk management and insurance coverage. He is a leader at University Presbyterian Church and actively involved in programs that integrate faith, science and technology with faculty of the University of Washington. He is a graduate of Stanford University and UC Berkeley’s Law School.

is Professor of Law at the Seattle University School of Law, and a Fellow of the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality. He was educated at Pomona College and Yale Divinity School before receiving his law degree from Harvard Law School. Professor Chinen teaches contracts and courses in international law and writes on various aspects of international law (including governance and theology) as well as artificial intelligence and legal responsibility

is a senior instructor in the Departments of Management and Philosophy at Seattle University, focusing on business ethics with particular research emphasis on big data management and business use of artificial intelligence.  He has been instrumental in the formation of the University’s new Center for Science and Innovation.

is an assistant professor at the University of Washington. She currently teaches classes in Comparative Religion; Environmental Ethics; Philosophy, Religion and the Environment; Biomedical Ethics and Introduction to Ethics.

is a Bellevue based attorney and business executive with extensive experience in international business and transactions, technology and intellectual property.

is an Assistant Investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science where her research centers on how the brain transforms sensory information into perception and behavior. Saskia received her Ph.D. from Harvard.

Is the President of the Seattle School of Theology & Psychology, and a professor, author, and mentor on culture, faith and technology. In addition to writing screenplays for Hollywood, his books include iGods: How Technology Shapes Our Spiritual and Social Lives and Selfies: Searching for the Image of God in a Digital Age. He graduated from Davidson College, earned an M.F.A. from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, and an M.Div. and Ph.D from Fuller Theological Seminary.

is the pastor of Northminster Presbyterian Church in Seattle. While at Princeton Theological Seminary she placed emphasis on the field of Theological Anthropology, which seeks to understand what it means to be human and supports human flourishing. Serving in congregations from Belfast, Northern Ireland to Cape Town, South Africa to Los Angeles, CA, she has observed the complex impacts of technology across the globe. Her current congregation, set in the Ballard neighborhood, engages people working in the humanities, ethics, technology, brain science, just to name a few.

is a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Physics at Belmont University in Nashville, where he teaches physics to audio engineering students and is widely engaged in writing and conferences on the ethics of technology, and on machine learning applications to acoustics and audio signal processing. Fitting for Nashville and Belmont, he is also a singer songwriter. Scott holds a B.S. in Physics from the College of William and Mary and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Texas at Austin.

is Professor of Philosophy, a Fellow of the University of Notre Dame’s Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, and an Affiliate of the newly formed interdisciplinary Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center. Professor Howard has been writing and teaching about the ethics of science and technology for over three decades. Among his current research interests are ethical and legal issues in cyberconflict and cybersecurity as well as the ethics of autonomous systems.  Professor Howard earned his Ph.D from Boston University.

is the President Emeritus of the University of Washington and also served there as long time Provost and Chair of the Department of Bioengineering.  He is a leader at University Presbyterian Church. At the UW, he is presently leading the Health Innovators Collaborative to advance information sharing, resource availability, joint projects and creation of new initiatives related to seizing the opportunities presented by the unprecedented changes in healthcare.

is the Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Washington, Tacoma, and teaches in Politics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, a division of the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on the intersection of religion, human rights, and international relations.

 is an entrepreneur, investor, technologist and a community volunteer. He is a 20-year Microsoft Corporation veteran where he served as a Corporate Vice President.  In 1997 Jawad helped establish the Ithna‐asheri Muslim Association of the Northwest (IMAN)  and serves as its President.

is the Robert Bolles and Yasuko Endo Professor within the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Washington in Seattle, and author of the book Data-Driven Modeling & Scientific Computation: Methods for Complex Systems & Big Data (Oxford Univ. Press, 2013).

leads TheoTech and created its chief product spf.io, a platform where humans and AI collaborate to deliver real time translations of live events. He formerly served as a software engineer at Amazon and received a Masters in Computer Science at the University of Washington doing machine translation research under Professor Oren Etzioni.

is the founder and CEO of Asclepius, Inc, a privately-owned healthcare company, and serves as an Adjunct Professor at both Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. He graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and received his M.D. from its Medical School. He completed a general surgery internship at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine Chattanooga, and plastic surgery clinical and research fellowships at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. Additionally, he earned a post-doctoral Master in Medical Sciences Degree in translational medical research from Harvard Medical School.

is the Principal Group Program Manager – Artificial Intelligence and Research for Bing Search & AI at Microsoft. He holds undergraduate and masters degrees in computer science respectively from Maharashtra Institute of Technology and Stanford University, and an MBA from UC Berkeley. Meenaz is an active leader and worships with his family at the Iman Center in Kirkland, Washington.

is a Seattle based AI/ML expert and founder of Pi Square (www.PiSquare.ai), a machine-learning startup specializing in AR/VR/XR, synthetic voice (called NeuraVoice) and intelligent automation (RPA). In his past life, Vikram has been in executive leadership team of multiple unicorn startups & multi-billion dollar corporate where he helped the biggest brand names in retail, cpg, pharma, technology and telecom industries adopt AI in early 2000’s to create positive impact using machine learning. Vikram also started The Good AI (www.TheGoodAI.org) to create awareness, engagement and actions towards ethical issues and bias of AI.

is the principal and founder of The Trio Group, specializing in customer-driven business and marketing insights for a wide range of technology companies. She was formerly a senior executive for consumer and competitive insights at Microsoft and T-Mobile.

is Co-Pastor and Vision Lead at Union Church, South Lake Union, and adjunct professor of business ethics at SPU. As Union’s Vision Lead, James B. seeks to work with the community to live into our call to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with Jesus. Before co-founding Union more than ten years ago, James B was in ministry with Ann Arbor First Presbyterian Church, and then with University Presbyterian Church in Seattle. James B. received an M.Div. at Princeton Theological Seminary. A native of Seattle he loves the rain but increasingly appreciates how sunshine makes biking and tennis more enjoyable.

is a machine learning leader at Amazon and formerly a Senior Program Manager in AI at Microsoft.  He holds a dual undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Computer Science from Duke University.

is University Librarian, Assistant Provost for Educational Technology, and Director and Associate Professor of Information Studies at Seattle Pacific University. His administrative, teaching, and scholarly interests focus on the history and future of information and communication technologies.

is currently the Director of product management at Amazon for Echo multimodal products. Her prior experience includes senior executive positions in e commerce and product development at Starbucks and Getty Images. She also served as the Vice President for Marketing and Development of Medical Teams International.

is the founder of Serious Insights, which provides analysis and strategy around scenario planning, knowledge management, collaboration, emerging technology and popular culture to help clients put their future in context. He is the author of Listening to the Future, and Management by Design, speaks and writes frequently in technology settings, and publishes regular blog posts on AI on the Serious Insights website. Daniel attended the University of California at Santa Cruz and holds a certificate in intelligent systems engineering from the University of California at Irvine.

is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Seattle Pacific University. Her areas of expertise include Philosophy of Mind and Action Theory (including causal theories of action, agent causation, and free will). She received her Ph.D from Brown University.

is the founder of the Modern Wisdom Leadership Institute whose purpose is to help individuals and organizations discover their unique meaning, purpose and direction so all involved can live joyful and fulfilling lives. In addition to significant non-profit experience in the entertainment industry and SGI-USA Buddhist Association, Marc has provided enlightened business strategy and marketing consulting services to organizations as diverse as Coca Cola, Microsoft, and the Presidential Inaugural Committee. Most recently Marc worked as a Director of Business Development in Microsoft’s Xbox Gaming Division.

has been the senior rabbi of the largest synagogue in the Northwest, Temple De Hirsch Sinai, with over 4,000 members, since 2001.  He is a pioneer in video worship, an author and columnist for Seattle newspapers, and leads the worship rock band at TDS.

has been a long-time business leader, both in commercial real estate and as a serial entrepreneur. He also speaks and writes regularly regarding the intersection of faith and business. Tim is a transplant from Boston where he graduated from Harvard and joined Red Sox Nation. He is also a Fellow of the Center for Enterprise, Markets and Ethics at Oxford, and is a member of the Executive Advisory Board for the School of Business, Government and Economics at Seattle Pacific University.

is Chair of the Comparative Religion Program in the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, and head of the Initiative for Global Christian Studies.