BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//AI and Faith - ECPv6.16.3//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://aiandfaith.org
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for AI and Faith
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/Los_Angeles
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20250309T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20251102T090000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20260308T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20261101T090000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20270314T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20271107T090000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260711
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260712
DTSTAMP:20260603T121813
CREATED:20260320T194810Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260320T194810Z
UID:9521-1783728000-1783814399@aiandfaith.org
SUMMARY:Ignatian Discernment over AI Relationships: From Agentic Assistants and Companions to Virtual Friends and Romantic Partners
DESCRIPTION:Ignatian Discernment over AI Relationships: From Agentic Assistants and Companions to Virtual Friends and Romantic Partners\nGonzaga University\, Florence Campus\nFlorence\, Italy\nSaturday July 11\, 2026 \nContact admin@aiandfaith.org for more information.
URL:https://aiandfaith.org/event/agentic-assistants-and-companions-to-virtual-friends-and-romantic-partners/
LOCATION:Italy
CATEGORIES:External Events
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260721T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260721T120000
DTSTAMP:20260603T121813
CREATED:20260514T223828Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260529T170137Z
UID:9623-1784624400-1784635200@aiandfaith.org
SUMMARY:AI and Faith – Chaplaincy\, Care & AI Symposium
DESCRIPTION:Date: Tuesday\, July 21\nTime: 9 AM – 12 PM/PDT | 12 – 3 PM/EDT I 6 – 9 PM/CEST\nREGISTER HERE\nIs AI an assist\, an adjunct\, or an adversary in Healthcare Chaplaincy?\nJoin us for a half day of discussion on the intersection of artificial intelligence\, chaplaincy\, and healthcare. As technology reshapes clinical environments\, chaplaincy and spiritual care leaders have a unique opportunity to help guide how innovation is integrated with compassion\, ethics\, and human dignity. Experts will offer their critical insights into what is known about AI\, chaplaincy\, and healthcare\, and what needs continued exploration. \nDuring this session\, we will have a presentation on the current landscape of these themes\, presented by David Fleenor\, a certified chaplain\, clinical pastoral educator\, priest\, and author of “Transforming Healthcare Chaplaincy Education.” Additionally\, Rabbi Dr. Jason Weiner of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center will moderate the discussion between Tracy Trothen\, Professor of Ethics at Queen’s University and author of Understanding Religion and Artificial Intelligence: Meaning-Making in the Digital Age and C. Estelle Smith\, Professor of Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines and designer of computational spiritual support frameworks. They will assess the challenges and opportunities artificial intelligence offers in this field\, exploring if artificial intelligence is good for chaplaincy and how it will affect people. We will also provide the opportunity for the audience to explore these questions themselves through structured discussions and then a final reflection. \n  \n\nMeet the speakers: \n \nRev. Dr. David Fleenor is an Episcopal priest\, healthcare chaplain educator\, researcher\, and consultant whose work explores the intersection of spiritual care\, healthcare\, education\, ethics\, and emerging technologies. He serves as Director of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at ArchCare\, the continuing care community of the Archdiocese of New York\, where he leads chaplaincy education and professional formation initiatives across healthcare settings. He is also Associate Professor of Spiritual Care and Field Education at the George Mercer School of Theology and founder of Fleenor Consulting\, LLC\, an educational consulting practice focused on curriculum design\, organizational learning\, and professional development. \nDr. Fleenor completed his PhD in Health Sciences at Rush University\, where his research focused on transforming healthcare chaplaincy education through competency-based curriculum development\, educational standardization\, and evidence-informed professional formation. His scholarship has examined the competencies healthcare organizations seek in entry-level chaplains\, the experiences of early-career chaplains\, national curriculum standards for healthcare chaplaincy education\, and the effectiveness of online Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). He has a particular interest in digital spiritual care and education\, online learning\, AI ethics\, systems thinking\, and the future of theological and clinical education. \nOver the course of his career\, Dr. Fleenor has developed and led innovative educational initiatives in hospitals\, seminaries\, nonprofit organizations\, and faith-based institutions. He previously founded the first ACPE-accredited CPE program at Stony Brook University Hospital and served as Clinical Instructor in the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. Earlier in his career\, he directed the Center for Spirituality and Health at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. \nDr. Fleenor currently provides online CPE and professional chaplaincy education through several ACPE-accredited programs across the United States. His work in digital education focuses on preserving relational depth\, reflective practice\, group process\, and human presence within virtual learning environments. \nHe currently serves on the Leadership Advisory Group for the international “Digital Spiritual Care: Towards a Vision for Compassionate Care in Digital Health” initiative\, a Templeton-funded project bringing together scholars\, clinicians\, technologists\, and spiritual care leaders from the United States and Europe to help shape the future of compassionate care in digital healthcare environments.   He also serves on the Association of Professional Chaplains (APC) ETHOS Task Force (Ethical Technology for Human Oriented Spiritual Care)\, which is developing recommendations and best practices regarding the ethical use of AI in chaplaincy and spiritual care. \nIn addition to his academic and clinical work\, Dr. Fleenor writes and speaks publicly about the “human side” of AI\, exploring how emerging technologies are reshaping relationships\, professional identity\, reflective practice\, communication\, and spiritual formation. Through presentations\, articles\, and consulting\, he encourages faith leaders\, educators\, and healthcare professionals to engage technology thoughtfully and ethically while remaining grounded in empathy\, wisdom\, human presence\, and relational care. \n\n \nC. Estelle Smith\, Ph.D.\, is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines specializing in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)\, Human-AI Interaction (HAI)\, AI Ethics\, and Digital Spiritual Care (https://estellesmithphd.com). Dr. Smith is also the General Chair of the SPIRITED Collective (https://spiritedhci.org/)\, a group of researchers\, scholars\, and practitioners engaged in work at the intersection of spirituality\, religion\, and interactive technology design. Dr. Smith’s research supports spiritual wellbeing at scale by studying\, designing\, and evaluating effective technology integrations across professional and lay-provisioned spiritual care settings\, with a major focus on appropriate AI use in spiritual care and on the governance and UI/UX design of Online Spiritual Care Communities (OSCCs). Dr. Smith advocates for caution in the adoption of AI-based technologies\, calling for evidence-based and human-centered design and integration of technologies only when they are constrained to scientifically validated use cases that can effectively supplement human care and connection. With paper awards and publications at premier HCI venues including ACM CSCW\, CHI\, and TOCHI\, Dr. Smith regularly studies and collaborates with platforms like CaringBridge\, Reddit\, and Wikipedia. She is the recipient of a John Templeton Foundation award (62930)\, “Expanding Models of Delivery for Online Spiritual Care.” Prior to her professorship\, Dr. Smith earned a B.A. in English Literature (2010)\, B.S. in Neuroscience (2015)\, and M.S./Ph.D. in Computer Science (2020) from the University of Minnesota. She then completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Colorado Boulder\, Department of Information Science (2021-2022). \n\nTracy J. Trothen is a professor of ethics at Queen’s University (Canada)\, jointly appointed to the School of Religion and the School of Rehabilitation Therapy. She has expertise in clinical spiritual care and is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada. Trothen is the author or editor of numerous articles\, chapters\, and books including her co-authored books\, Understanding Religion and Artificial Intelligence: Meaning-Making in the Digital Age (with R. Reed\, 2026)\, and Religion and the Technological Future: An Introduction to Biohacking\, AI\, and Transhumanism (with C. Mercer\, 2021). Tracy co-chairs the American Academy of Religion’s (AAR) Artificial Intelligence Unit and is a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR). \n\nRabbi Dr. Jason Weiner\, BCC\, is the senior rabbi and executive director of the Spiritual Care Department at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles\, where he oversees the chaplaincy team and all spiritual care services across the health system. He also serves as rabbi of Knesset Israel Synagogue of Beverlywood and as a senior consultant to Ematai. \nFormerly the assistant rabbi at Young Israel of Century City\, Rabbi Weiner holds two rabbinic ordinations\, a doctorate in clinical bioethics\, a master’s in bioethics and health policy from Loyola University (Chicago)\, and a master’s in Jewish history from Yeshiva University. He completed four units of clinical pastoral education and is a board-certified chaplain. \n\n  Mark Graves is the Research Director at AI & Faith\, a Research Associate Professor of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary\, and a Visiting Scholar at University of San Francisco. He has developed AI and data solutions in the biotech\, pharmaceutical\, and healthcare industries. Mark’s current research focuses on using text analysis and other natural language processing techniques for understanding and modeling human morality\, ethical approaches to data science and machine learning\, and philosophical and psychological foundations for constructing moral AI. Mark holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Michigan and a master‘s degree in theology from the Jesuit School of Theology and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. \n  \nREGISTER HERE
URL:https://aiandfaith.org/event/ai-and-faith-chaplaincy-care-symposium/
LOCATION:Online
CATEGORIES:External Events
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/webp:https://aiandfaith.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/AI-and-Faith-Chaplaincy-Care-AI-Symposium_result.webp
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR