Our Shared Future (Re)Shaped by AI

Ruha Benjamin is the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, and award-winning author of Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want, and she recently released her fourth book, Imagination: A Manifesto. Ruha is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Marguerite Casey Foundation Freedom Scholar Award, the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton, and in 2024 she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellowship.

Dr. Donna Ginther is the Roy A. Roberts & Regents Distinguished Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute for Policy & Social Research at the University of Kansas and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Prior to joining the University of Kansas faculty, she was a research economist and associate policy adviser in the regional group of the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta from 2000 to 2002 and taught at Washington University from 1997 to 2000 and Southern Methodist University from 1995 to 1997. Her major fields of study are scientific labor markets, gender differences in employment outcomes, wage inequality, science policy, and investments in children.

Dr. Ginther has published in several journals, including Science, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Demography, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, and the Papers and Proceedings of the American Economic Association. She has also received research funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Her research has been featured in several media outlets including the Economist, New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, NPR, and the Boston Globe.

Dr. Ginther testified before the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education of the U.S. House of Representatives on the Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Act of 2008 and the Working Group on Women in the 21st Century Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives. Dr. Ginther has advised the National Academies of Science, the National Institutes of Health, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation on the diversity and future of the scientific workforce. She is currently President-elect of the Southern Economic Association and previously served as Vice President and on its Board. She is a member of the American Economic Association Committee on Professional Climate and previously served on the Nominations Committee and the Board of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. Dr. Ginther is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (elected in 2023) and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (elected 2025).

A native of Wisconsin, Dr. Ginther received her doctorate in economics in 1995, master’s degree in economics in 1991, and bachelor of arts in economics in 1987, all from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Kara Lowe serves as President & CEO of KC Tech Council, the member-driven voice of Kansas City’s tech industry. Representing nearly 200 companies, from startups to enterprises, KCTC brings industry leaders together to shape public policy, strengthen the tech workforce, and provide the data and connections that help the region compete. Under Kara’s leadership,  KCTC launched KC TechBridge, an employer-led initiative focused on helping more Kansas City residents move into tech careers by better connecting talent, training, and hiring.

Kara became President & CEO in May 2022 after more than five years as the Council’s COO. Throughout her 20-plus-year career, she has worked to grow Kansas City’s economy. She serves on the boards of the Missouri Technology Corporation and KU Edwards Campus Workforce Development, and as treasurer of the Tech Councils of North America (TECNA), a binational tech advocacy organization. She was named to the Kansas City Business Journal’s 2021 NextGen Leaders class and is a 2015 graduate of the KC Chamber’s Centurions Leadership Program.

A University of Kansas journalism graduate and Overland Park native, Kara lives in Kansas City, Missouri, with her husband, Pat, and their two children.

Dr. Jeffrey Thompson is Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Research Technology & AI at the University of Kansas and Chief Research Informatics Officer at the University of Kansas Medical Center. He provides strategic leadership for digital research infrastructure, advanced computing, artificial intelligence, and data science, helping accelerate scientific discovery and improve research effectiveness across the institution. 

Dr. Thompson co-founded the Enhanced AI Center for Human Focused Research with CIO Chris Harper to help encourage research into how artificial intelligence can be used to improve human well-being. He advocates for a principled approach to AI use and development that is centered on how it benefits people and helped author the guiding principles used by the University of Kansas. 

Dr. Thompson’s research interests span artificial intelligence, biomedical informatics, knowledge representation, and the application of data science to improve human health. He works in two main areas. His work in machine learning focuses on developing innovative methods for combining data from different sources to build an improved understanding of disease progression and recovery. His work in informatics concentrates on translating emerging technologies into practical research capabilities that enable data-driven discovery, strengthen collaboration, and drive innovation in biomedical and clinical research.

Tiffany Hsu writes about the quality and movement of information and the many threats to shared facts for the New York Times. In her reporting, she follows false narratives, political propaganda, conspiracy theories, influence campaigns, deepfake forums and more. She also covers disinformation defense tactics, including fact-checking, content moderation, media literacy, A.I. detection tools and regulatory intervention. Her stories examine why people believe what they believe—and how those beliefs can have real-world repercussions. Background Tiffany Hsu has been a journalist for more than two decades. She joined The Times in 2017, after spending several years as a business reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She got her start at publications including the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the San Francisco Bay Guardian and The Daily Californian at the University of California, Berkeley. She is based in Northern California. One day, she hopes to write about her great passion: fried chicken.

Justin Stanley is a Professor of Communication Studies at Johnson County Community College, where he has served as a full-time faculty member for 19 years, specializing in Public Speaking and Workplace Skills. He holds an undergraduate degree in Sociopolitical Communication from Missouri State University and a master’s in communication studies from the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Over the past five years, Justin has focused heavily on the intersection of AI and higher education, serving as Chair of JCCC’s AI Taskforce, leading a monthly faculty group on emerging AI trends, and attending national conferences on AI in education.