Prof. Shannon Vallor is the Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) at the University of Edinburgh, where she is also appointed in Philosophy. She is Co-Director of the Centre for Technomoral Futures in EFI, and Co-Director of the BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides) programme, funded by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council. Professor Vallor's research explores how new technologies, especially AI, robotics, and data science, reshape human moral character, habits, and practices. Her work includes advising policymakers and industry on the ethical design and use of AI. She is a standing member of the One Hundred Year Study of Artificial Intelligence (AI100) and serves on the Oversight Board of the Ada Lovelace Institute. Professor Vallor received the 2015 World Technology Award in Ethics from the World Technology Network, the 2022 Covey Award from the International Association of Computing and Philosophy, and the University of Edinburgh's 2024 Chancellor's Award for Research. She is a former Visiting Researcher and AI Ethicist at Google. She is the author of the book Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting (Oxford University Press, 2016) and The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking (Oxford University Press, 2024).

Professor Ewa Luger is co-Programme Director of AHRC’s Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID). She also codirects the EPSRC Responsible NLP CDT at the University of Edinburgh. Working closely with policymakers and industry, she is a member of the DCMS college of experts and the leadership council for the Centre for Artificial Intelligence (Future of Privacy Forum).

Research
Ewa’s research explores social, ethical, and interactional issues in the context of AI and other complex data-driven systems, with a particular focus on policy, design, spheres of exclusion and consent of the user. Past projects have focused on responsible AI, voice systems and language models in use, application of AI in journalism and public service media, intelligibility of AI and data driven systems to expert and non-expert users, security and safety of systems in the cloud and at the edge, and the readiness of accounting institutions and knowledge workers to make use of AI.

Projects
Since 2016, Ewa has been investigator on over £40 million of externally-funded projects (EPSRC, ESRC, AHRC, Centre for Digital Built Britain and DataLab) since 2016. She is currently Co-PI of the AHRC Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) programme, Co-I on the EPSRC Fixing the Future project, and collaborator on the UKRI Digital Twinning Network (DTNet+) and Co-I on the Responsible NLP CDT. Ewa is also an organiser of Conversations, an annual international workshop on chatbot research, since 2015.

Background
Previously a fellow of the Alan Turing Institute, Researcher at Microsoft, Fellow of Corpus Christi College (University of Cambridge), and consultant ethicist for Microsoft Research (2016-2020). She builds upon 15 years as a lifelong learning expert and practitioner (NIACE, 1999-2014) where she investigated digital inclusion within marginalised communities. Ewa holds a BA (Hons) in International Relations & Politics, an MA in International Relations and a PhD in Computer Science.