Maya Ackerman (Advisor), PhD, is CEO and Co-Founder of WaveAI and an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Santa Clara University. A pioneering researcher generative AI and creativity, she has spent over a decade building AI systems that empower millions of creators, including LyricStudio and MelodyStudio, which have contributed to #1 hits and viral songs. Her work has been featured in major international media and she has spoken at the United Nations, Oxford, Google, Microsoft, and more. Maya is also the author of “Creative Machines: AI, Art & Us“, exploring how AI can elevate human imagination.
Robert Hunt (Contributing Fellow – Programs) is a professor at Southern Methodist University and Director of Global Theological Education at Perkins School of Theology. His current research explores how technology and artificial intelligence shape human self-understanding across different cultures and religious traditions. Dr. Hunt’s most recent book, All Brain and No Soul: Real Humanity in the Age of AI (2025), examines the implications of AI for human self-understanding in the emergent AI Age. With extensive experience in world religions, intercultural understanding, and emergent religious movements, Dr. Hunt brings a global perspective to questions of technology and humanity. He holds degrees from The University of Texas, SMU, the University of Malay, and maintains a blog and YouTube channel exploring the intersections of religion, technology, and culture.
Dr. Marina Zilbergerts’ (Advisor) work explores the intersection of the Bible, human consciousness, and emerging technologies, bringing the study of language to bear on foundational questions about subjectivity and the human experience. She is the author of a recently completed book manuscript, Reading Genesis in the Age of AI: A New Story of Consciousness, which argues that the Book of Genesis offers an early phenomenology of consciousness that anticipates debates now resurfacing in contemporary theories of mind and in the study of artificial agents. She earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and is currently a Visiting Professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa. She previously served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She engages in public conversations on personhood, faith and science, and the ethics of artificial intelligence, and writes The Inner Light on Substack.
