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Professor Peter Asaro is a philosopher of science, technology and media. His work examines artificial intelligence and robotics as a form of digital media, the ethical dimensions of algorithms and data, and the ways in which technology mediates social relations and shapes our experience of the world.

His current research focuses on the social, cultural, political, legal and ethical dimensions of automation and autonomous technologies, from a perspective that combines media theory with science and technology studies. He has written widely-cited papers on autonomous weapons from the perspective of just war theory and human rights, and the legal and moral issues raised by law enforcement robots and predictive policing. Prof. Asaro's research also examines agency and autonomy, liability and punishment, and privacy and surveillance as it applies to consumer robots, industrial automation, smart buildings, UAVs and drones, and autonomous vehicles. His research has been published in international peer reviewed journals and edited volumes, translated into French, German, Korean and Braille, and he is currently researching a book that interrogates the intersections between advanced robotics, and social and ethical issues.

Prof. Asaro was recently a Visiting Professor at TU Munich's Center for Technology in Society, and has held research positions at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University, Center for Cultural Analysis at Rutgers University, the HUMlab of Umeå University in Sweden, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. He has also developed technologies in the areas of virtual reality, data visualization and sonification, human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robot vision, and neuromorphic robotics at the National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA), the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, and Iguana Robotics, Inc., and was involved in the design of the natural language interface for the Wolfram|Alpha computational knowledge engine for Wolfram Research--this interface is also used by Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Bing to answer math queries, and won two 2010 SXSW Web Interactive Awards for Technical Achievement and Best of Show.

He is completing an Oral History of Robotics project that is funded by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and the National Endowment for the Humanities Office of Digital Humanities. He recently completed a three-year project on Regulating Autonomous Artificial Agents: A Systematic Approach to Developing AI & Robot Policy, funded by the Future of Life Institute.

In 2009, Prof. Asaro co-founded the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) which has been advocating for an international ban on autonomous weapon systems, and which in 2012 joined a coalition of NGOs to form the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. The Campaign has been successful in initiating discussions of autonomous weapons at the United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), and seeks to advance those talks to treaty negotiations.

Prof. Asaro received his PhD in the History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he also earned a Master of Arts from the Department of Philosophy, and a Master of Computer Science from the Department of Computer Science.

Dr. Chiu is a Data Scientist with a wide domain of expertise in wireless networks, ecommerce and Artificial Intelligence.  She has a B.A.Sc. in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from the Department of Engineering Science, and a M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. from the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, all from the University of Toronto.  She held an NSERC Canada Graduate Fellowship during her Ph.D. studies and an NSERC Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Ryerson University.   Her graduate and post-doctoral work focused on understanding and modeling creativity and designer behaviour in engineering design using cognitive psychology and natural language processing.   Her research resulted in over 20 AI-related conference and journal papers.

Currently, she is a Senior Data Scientist at TELUS where she works on internal and external data and AI projects with partners such as the Vector Institute, the Alan Turing Institute in the UK, the GSMA and various start-ups.

Kate Devlin is an academic and a writer. She is Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Social and Cultural Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Digital Humanities at King's College London. A former archaeologist with a PhD in computer science, her research in HCI and AI investigates how people interact with and react to technologies, both past and future. Her book, "Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots" was published in October 2018 to widespread critical acclaim. She tweets as @drkatedevlin

Brent is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Western University with the Department of Computer Science. His research focuses on using machine learning and natural language processing with information retrieval techniques to build exploratory search techniques for text. This research has found itself most at home in applications on social media, where it has been used for public health applications. Owing to the new challenges faced by analysis of social media, Brent has a large interest in design and ethics of analysis performed by emerging research in this area.

Before starting his doctoral program, Brent completed an Honor’s specialization in the Biochemistry of Immunity and Infection, where he, had and has, interest in bioinformatics and genomics. While a doctoral student at Western, Brent currently teaches two courses: Professional Computing for Applied Scientists (at Western University) and Foundations of Data Science for Management & Organizational Studies (at Huron University). In these courses and in other work, Brent tries to focus on teaching students where AI can be helpful, how to critically evaluate the systems using AI, and to be aware of modern limits in the space. Brent is a member of both the Φ (Predictive Health Informatics) Lab and Insight Lab at Western. 

Silvia De Conca is a PhD researcher at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, Market, and Society of Tilburg University (NL). Her PhD research analyses the effects of vocal assistants on the private sphere (the home) and on the legal tools protecting it, with a focus on personal data protection. More in general, Silvia’s work and expertise focus on the way in which the law thinks, deals with, and relates to, AI and robotics. Other research interests of Silvia include privacy and data protection, regulation of technology, IT Law, and IP law.

Silvia is the chair of the out Privacy & Data Protection section of the Human Rights in the Digital Age group, part of the Dutch Network for Human Rights Research (NNHRR). She is an active member of the Privacy & Identity Lab (PILab), of the Amsterdam Platform for Privacy Research (APPR), and of the Digital Society (DiSa) of the VSNU.

Before joining Tilburg University, Silvia has practiced the law in the Rome and Milan offices of Clifford Chance LLP and Dewey & LeBeuf LLP (Corporate Law, International Business Contract, M&A), and has worked as a contract Professor of IT Law and International IP Law at Monterrey Tech University (CUU, Mex). Silvia holds a bachelor and master’s degree cum laude in Law from Roma Tre University (Italy), and an LL.M. in IT law from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (U.K.).

Suzie Dunn is PhD candidate and part time professor at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law.

Her research centers on the intersections of gender, equality, technology and the law, with a specific focus the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, deepfakes, and impersonation in digital spaces. She was awarded the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Scholarship for her PhD research.

As an innovative thinker with a deep passion for human rights and technology, she has published and presented her work both nationally and internationally on issues including the importance of internet connectivity for northern youth, the application of Canadian law to deepfake technology, and civil responses to the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. She is also a researcher with The eQuality Project where she is developing a case law database on technology-facilitated violence and is a Senior Fellow with CIGI.

Liz Gray is an articling student working in IP law in Ottawa.  She focuses on patent drafting and prosecution for emerging and high-tech technologies, including artificial intelligence, robotics, and satellite communications.  Her interests include the ways in which policy, technology, and global markets interact, the ethics of autonomous systems in both military and civilian contexts, and the interplay between democratic decision-making and new tech.  

Liz graduated from the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law in 2019 with a J.D. (Honours) and an Option in Law and Technology.  Before law school, she worked at Autodata Solutions in London, Ontario, where she built backend logic structures for international vehicle manufacturers.  In addition to her J.D., Liz holds a B.Sc. (Honours Specialization) in Astrophysics from the University of Western Ontario and minors in Computer Science and Music.

Arthur is in the U.N. Global Pulse Advisory Group on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data and occasionally speaks as an expert for the U.N. Department of Drugs and Cyber Crime. In addition, he is a member of the U.S. Open Technology Fund Advisory Council, and the IEEE Global Standards Association. He has held a number of research fellowships including with the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, Strathmore Law School and Research ICT Africa.  His research focus is mostly on the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, human rights and ethics. Arthur is widely regarded as one of the leading experts on the human rights impact of Chinese technology on Africa.  He is the lead author for the 2020 We Robot Conference paper titled, “Integrating Africa into AI policy agendas’ submitted by the Open African Innovation Research (OpenAIR) network. Arthur is always willing to support research and advocacy initiatives on Africa. 

Woodrow Hartzog is a Professor of Law and Computer Science at Northeastern University School of Law and the Khoury College of Computer Sciences. He is also a Resident Fellow at the Center for Law, Innovation and Creativity (CLIC) at Northeastern University, a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, a Non-resident Fellow at The Cordell Institute for Policy in Medicine & Law at Washington University, and an Affiliate Scholar at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. His research on privacy, media, and robotics has been published in scholarly publications such as the Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review, and California Law Review and popular publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. He has testified multiple times before Congress and has been quoted or referenced by numerous media outlets, including NPR, BBC, and The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of Privacy’s Blueprint: The Battle to Control the Design of New Technologies, published in 2018 by Harvard University Press.

Lara Karaian is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. She is also an Adjunct Professor in the department of Law and Legal Studies at York University; a Senior Fellow and blogger at Ryerson University’s Centre for Free Expression; and an editorial member of the journal Porn Studies.

Professor Karaian’s interdisciplinary research examines the intersections between sexuality, technology, representation, bodily experience, and legal regulation. She has published on topics such as censorship and queer pornography; teenage sexting and child pornography; accidental incest and ‘technology facilitated’ incest; digital ‘self-exploitation’; risk management and (self)surveillance; and pregnant men and anti-discrimination law. Her work can be found in top ranked journals such as Osgoode Hall Law Journal; Law, Culture and the Humanities; Theoretical Criminology; Social and Legal Studies; Crime Media Culture; and The Canadian Journal of Women and the Law.

Dr. Karaian's current Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded research—“Sex/Crime in the Era of Immersive, Interactive, and Intelligent Technologies: A Study of Sextech, Affect and Law” (Insight Grant, 2020-2025)— examines how sextech—new technologies developed or applied to enhance, innovate, or disrupt human sexual experience—affects us, and how these affects sustain or destabilize legal and cultural constructions of ‘sex crime’. This research engages with affect theory, science and technology studies, cultural criminology, post-humanism, critical race, queer theory, and new feminist-materialism. It builds on her previous SSHRC funded study: “Selfies, Sexuality, and Teens: A Canadian Study” (Insight Development Grant, 2012-2015) which examined how courts, child protection agencies, and crime prevention efforts construct and regulate consensual teenage digital sexual expression.

Professor Karaian has served as an Expert Consultant for national and international studies on youths’ digital sexual expression (including the Australian Law Reform Committee’s International Consultation on Sexting, and the Canadian House of Commons’ Standing Committee on the Status of Women's study on Violence against Young Women and Girls). Additionally, she has served as an expert consultant on numerous criminal cases involving youths’ consensual and non-consensual intimate image distribution.

Cynthia Khoo is a technology and human rights lawyer called to the Bar of Ontario and a Research Fellow at the Citizen Lab (Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto). She serves on the Board of Directors of Open Privacy and holds an LL.M. (Concentration in Law and Technology) from the University of Ottawa, where she interned as a research student and junior counsel at the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC). Cynthia is the founder of Tekhnos Law, a sole practice digital rights law firm, and has represented clients in interventions before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and the Supreme Court of Canada. Her work focuses on the impacts of the Internet and technology on marginalized communities, particularly equality and related human rights implications arising from online platforms and algorithmic decision-making. Cynthia has extensive experience working across key digital rights issues such as privacy and data protection, freedom of expression, copyright, online censorship, net neutrality, and intermediary liability. She holds a J.D. from the University of Victoria Faculty of Law.

Sophie Le Page is a PhD student in Electronic Business Technologies at the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) under the supervision of Dr. Jason Millar (uOttawa, Canada Research Chair in Ethical Engineering of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence). Prior to commencing her doctoral studies, Sophie completed a Bachelor’s in Software Engineering in 2017, and a Master’s in Computer Science with a concentration in applied artificial intelligence (AI) in 2019, both at uOttawa. Her Master’s thesis under the supervision of Guy-Vincent Jourdan and in collaboration with IBM focused on web security applications, using machine learning (ML) techniques to classify between servers owned by an attacker vs servers that attackers hacked into to host an attack, informing the way in which attacks are then dealt with. Learning about the social and economic aspects of security beyond computer science coupled with a heightened interest in ML and AI fundamental research lead to a PhD pursuit in ethical engineering of robotics and AI. Sophie’s doctoral research examines how to translate ethical principles into engineering practice and requirements for autonomous vehicles.

David Madras is a PhD student in the Machine Learning group at the University of Toronto. He is also affiliated with the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. His research focuses on understanding automated decision-making systems, including their fairness, reliability, and interpretability, and on developing tools using deep learning and causal inference for usage in those systems. He was an organizer and program chair of the inaugual Pan-Canadian Self-Organizing Conference on Machine Learning (SOCMLx) in 2019 (https://sites.google.com/view/pcsocmlx/home). 

Simon Mayer is a Full Professor of Computer Science and heads the Chair for Interaction- and Communication-based Systems at the University of St. Gallen. His research group (interactions.ics.unisg.ch) explores interactions among devices and people in ubiquitous environments, with a focus on the integration of physical things into the Internet and the Web, on increasing the autonomy of Web-enabled devices and their understanding of one another, and on making interactions of connected devices intelligible for people. In his current positions and during his earlier work as a Senior Researcher and Area Manager with the Graz University of Technology and Pro2Future, an Austrian research center on cognitive products and production systems, and as a Senior Key Expert with Siemens Corporate Technology in Berkeley, US, he mostly focuses on the industrial domain, working on applications of (Semantic) Web technologies, automated planning, and novel user interfaces in the domains of manufacturing, smart grids, and building automation technologies.

AJung Moon is an Assistant Professor at McGill University (Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering). She is an experimental roboticist specializing in ethics and responsible design of interactive robots and autonomous intelligent systems. She studies how our interaction with machines influence people's behaviours and decisions, and investigates different ways to integrate our societal values in the design and deployment of autonomous systems. Prior to joining McGill, she served as a Senior Advisor for the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation, a task-force that investigated the need for improved technology governance and policy across national borders. She also ran a start-up AI ethics consultancy, Generation R Consulting and founded the Open Roboethics Institute, a Canadian nonprofit that investigates societal and ethical implications of robotics and AI.

She completed a BASc (University of Waterloo) in Mechatronics Engineering, and a MASc and a PhD (University of British Columbia) in Mechanical Engineering. She became a Vanier Scholar in 2013 and developed interactive robot behaviours that allows for a human and a robot to nonverbally negotiate their way out of conflicts that arise in human-robot teamwork. She currently serves on the Government of Canada Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence among others.

Osonde Osoba (pronounced “oh-shOwn-day aw-shAw-bah”) is an information scientist at the RAND Corporation and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He has a background in the design and optimization of machine learning algorithms. He has applied his machine learning (ML) expertise to diverse policy areas such as health, defense, and technology policy. His recent work on the implications of AI/ML has focused on issues of data privacy and fairness in algorithmic decision-support systems.

Nagla Rizk is a Professor of Economics and Founding Director of the Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) at the American University in Cairo’s School of Business. Her research area is the economics of knowledge, technology and development, with a focus on digital platforms, innovation, knowledge governance, business models and inclusive growth in the Middle East and Africa. Her recent work looks into the economics of data, AI and inclusion, with interest in gender and the future of work. Her recent publications include “Artificial Intelligence and Inequality in the Middle East” in The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and “The State of Open Data in the Middle East and North Africa” in The State of Open Data: Histories and Horizons. She founded the Open Data for Development Node for the Middle East and North Africa and is a Steering Committee Member of the Open African Innovation Research Partnership (Open AIR). She is an Associate Member of the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Law, Technology and Society, Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Affiliated Faculty at Harvard Law School’s Copyright course and Affiliated Fellow of Yale Law School’s Information Society Project. She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the New Economic Agenda and the Executive Committee of the International Economic Association. She has a record of policy impact in the area of open source technologies and regulation of ride-sharing in Egypt, and advocacy for the right to information. She taught at Columbia University, Yale Law School and the University of Toronto.

Isaac Rutenberg is a Senior Lecturer and is also the Director of the Center for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law (CIPIT) at Strathmore Law School in Nairobi, Kenya. He is also an Associate Member of the Center for Law, Technology, and Society, at the University of Ottawa. Dr. Rutenberg teaches and researches various aspects of IP and IT law, including data protection and privacy, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and the interface between IT law and intellectual property law. His most recent publication, Cyber Law in Kenya, is a comprehensive text on ICT law and policy in Kenya. He is registered to practice law in California, and is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the Kenya Industrial Property Institute. He holds a JD (law degree) and a PhD in chemistry.

Dr. Tobias Schonwetter is the Director of the Intellectual Property (IP) Unit (www.ip-unit.org) and an Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town's law faculty. He is a Principal Investigator for various intellectual property-related research and capacity building projects, including Open AIR (www.openair.africa). Previously, Tobias was a Senior Manager - Technology and Innovation Law - at PwC South Africa as well as the Regional Coordinator for Africa and Legal Lead South Africa for Creative Commons. He also served as an editor for the African Journal of Information and Communication’s (AJIC), Thematic Issues on Knowledge Governance, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cape Town’s IP Unit. In 2018-19, Tobias was the acting deputy dean for Internationalisation and Outreach in the law faculty at the University of Cape Town. Tobias specialises in and teaches intellectual property and cyberlaw, particularly the relationship between intellectual property, innovation and development. Tobias studied and practiced law in Germany and holds Ph.D. and LL.M. degrees from the University of Cape Town. In 2018, Tobias became an Associate Member of the Centre of Law, Technology and Society at the University of Ottawa, Canada; and in 2019 he joined the Department of Science and Innovation’s Open Science Advisory Board. Tobias has written numerous articles on intellectual property law and has spoken at various national and international conferences.

Dr. Andrea Slane is Associate Dean, Research, and Professor in Legal Studies, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, Ontario Tech University.  Her research focuses on law’s interface with digital communication and information technologies, including the nature of privacy interests and appropriate limits to privacy protection; legal approaches to various forms of online and other digital exploitation of vulnerable people; and personality rights and other efforts to use intellectual property to protect personal information and identity.  Her work and HQP training experience centrally concerns the social impact of current and emerging information and communication technologies, and the legal and policy protections needed to ensure their safe, equitable and principled use.

Luke Stark is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Fairness, Accountability, Transparency and Ethics (FATE) Group at Microsoft Research Montreal. Luke holds a PhD from the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, and an Honours BA and MA in History from the University of Toronto. Trained as a media historian, his scholarship centers on the interconnected histories of artificial intelligence (AI) and behavioral science, and on the ways the social and ethical contexts of AI systems—particularly those mediating social and emotional expression—are changing how we work, communicate, and participate in civic life.

Luke's work has been published in journals including Social Studies of Science, Media Culture and Society, History of the Human Sciences, and The International Journal of Communication; he has also contributed to several edited volumes. Before joining Microsoft Research, Luke was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Dartmouth College, a Fellow and Affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and an inaugural Fellow with the University of California Berkeley’s Center for Technology, Society, and Policy.

Dr. Bram Van Wiele is a lecturer at the University of Auckland Business School. Prior to joining the University of Auckland, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Bram is the current head of the Open African Innovation Research partnership’s New and Emerging Researchers Group, and a research fellow at UCT’s Intellectual Property Unit.

Bram holds PhD and LLM degrees from the University of Cape Town, and an LLM majoring in international and European law from the University of Antwerp. He teaches various courses on commercial and intellectual property law. His research interests include copyright, law and technology, and legal history.

Alice Xiang is the Head of Fairness, Transparency, and Accountability Research at the Partnership on AI, where she leads and manages a team of interdisciplinary researchers. Core areas of her research include bridging technical and legal approaches to algorithmic bias, assessing explainability techniques in deployment, and examining risk assessment tools. Alice’s work sits at the intersection of social justice and AI; she seeks to tackle the ways in which algorithmic decision-making can further entrench societal biases and inequalities.

She recently taught a course on “Algorithmic Fairness, Causal Inference, and the Law” at Tsinghua University’s Yau Mathematical Sciences Center, where she was a Visiting Scholar. She has also given lectures and speeches at events hosted by the AAAS, IEEE, Simons Institute, Harvard Institute of Quantitative Social Science, Tsinghua Statistical Sciences Center, RE•WORK, and others.

Alice's research has been published in peer-reviewed machine learning conferences, statistics journals, and law reviews. She has also been quoted in Axios, Mercury News, and VentureBeat, among others, for her work on algorithmic bias and transparency, criminal justice risk assessment tools, and the limitations of AI.

Prior to joining PAI, Alice worked as an attorney at Gunderson Dettmer, representing startups and venture capital firms. She has also worked in civil appellate litigation at the Department of Justice, econometrics research at the Federal Reserve, and data science at LinkedIn. Alice holds a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, a Master’s in Development Economics from Oxford, a Master’s in Statistics from Harvard, and a Bachelor’s in Economics from Harvard. 

Bryant Walker Smith is an associate professor in the School of Law and (by courtesy) the School of Engineering at the University of South Carolina. He is also an affiliate scholar at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School and co-director of the University of Michigan Project on Law and Mobility. He previously led the Emerging Technology Law Committee of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies and served on the US Department of Transportation's Advisory Committee on Automation in Transportation.

Trained as a lawyer and an engineer, Bryant advises cities, states, countries, and the United Nations on emerging transport technologies. He coauthored the globally influential levels of driving automation, drafted the leading model law for automated driving in the United States, and taught the first legal courses dedicated to automated driving (in 2012), hyperloops, and flying taxis. His students have developed best practices for regulating scooters, and he is writing on what it means to be a trustworthy company. His publications are available at newlypossible.org.

Before joining the University of South Carolina, Bryant led the legal aspects of automated driving program at Stanford University, clerked for the Hon. Evan J. Wallach at the United States Court of International Trade, and worked as a fellow at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He holds both an LL.M. in International Legal Studies and a J.D. (cum laude) from New York University School of Law and a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin. Prior to his legal career, Bryant worked as a transportation engineer.

Dr. Teresa Scassa is the Canada Research Chair in Information Law and Policy at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. She is a member of the Canadian Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence and a senior fellow with CIGI’s International Law Research Program. She is the author of Canadian Trademark Law, and co-author of Digital Commerce in Canada, and Canadian Intellectual Property Law. She is a co-editor of the books Law and the Sharing Economy and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Intellectual Property Law. Her research interests include: privacy law, data governance, intellectual property law, law and technology, law and artificial intelligence, and smart cities.