---
title: Carnegie Ethics Fellows Symposium 2026 | Virtual event registration
description: The Carnegie Ethics Fellows cohort will culminate with a symposium featuring expert discussions moderated by the Fellows on ethical issues of our time.
image: https://info.carnegiecouncil.org/hubfs/10.15.26%20CEF%20Symposium%202026/10.15%20CEF%20Symposium%20Social%20Preview%20(1).jpg
---
# Carnegie Ethics Fellows Symposium 2026
A Carnegie Council virtual event
Over two years, our [Carnegie Ethics Fellows](https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/initiatives-issues/carnegie-ethics-fellows) have been meeting with professionals across the international affairs field to learn about ethical decision-making, develop their capabilities, and become examples of values-driven responsible leadership. The Fellows have also been working on group projects around emerging ethical issues: water ethics, AI in healthcare, ethics of economic and national security, and the ethics of AI in humanitarian response.
For their culminating experience, the Fellows will host the **Carnegie Ethics Fellows Symposium** on **October 15, 2026**, a day-long conference to discuss their projects, alongside experts working on these topics. We invite you to attend to learn more about these emerging ethical issues.
The Symposium will feature four 60-minute panel discussions and audience Q&A, with a brief intermission between each.
**Thursday, October 15:**
Panel 1: 8:30-9:30am ET
Water as a Right or Commodity? Ethical Frameworks for Allocation Decisions
Panel 2: 10:30-11:30am ET
The Frontier at the Frontlines: New Ethical Paradigms of AI in Global Healthcare
Panel 3: 1:00-2:00pm ET
A New National Security Architecture: An Economic Security & Strategic Investment Framework for the Western Hemisphere
Panel 4: 3:00-4:00pm ET
Their Data, Whose Decision? The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Humanitarian Response
*For more on the Carnegie Ethics Fellows, visit Carnegie Council’s* [***website***](https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/initiatives-issues/carnegie-ethics-fellows) *to read their final projects and view their* [***Spotlight***](https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/initiatives-issues/carnegie-ethics-fellows/2025-2026-cohort)*series.*
### Select your sessions
### Learn more about each session
Water as a Right or Commodity?
The Frontier at the Frontlines
A New National Security Architecture
Their Data, Whose Decision?
**Water as a Right or Commodity? Ethical Frameworks for Allocation Decisions**
**Run Time:** 8:30am-9:30am ET
*Fellows: Nadav Avihay, Ruth Nashipae Muigai, and Harsh Suri*
Access to safe, affordable, and reliable water is increasingly threatened by the combined pressures of climate change, rapid urbanization, population growth, infrastructure underinvestment, the expanding demands of water-intensive industries, and most recently—data centers. Meanwhile, existing allocation frameworks are failing communities that are least equipped to advocate for themselves.
To address this pressing ethical issue, this panel will bring together scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to discuss how societies should balance private economic interests against the public's right to clean and sustainable sources of water. Panelists will explore how communities can meaningfully participate in water governance decisions, what obligations companies bear before and after entering a watershed, and what governments must do to uphold water as a human right, not merely an economic input.
**Opening Remarks:**
- [Ruth Nashipae Muigai](https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/people/ruth-nashipae-muigai), Carnegie Ethics Fellow
**Moderator:**
- [Nadav Avihay](https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/people/nadav-avihay), Carnegie Ethics Fellow
**Panelists:**
- [Janice Beecher](https://www.linkedin.com/in/janice-beecher-33a61810/), Commissioner, Connecticut PURA; Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University
- [Daniel A. Zarrilli](https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielzarrilli?utm_source=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=member_android), Adjunct Professor of Climate, Columbia University
**The Frontier at the Frontlines: New Ethical Paradigms of AI in Global Healthcare**
**Run Time:** 10:30am-11:30am ET
*Fellows: Rebecca Distler and Kathy Kim*
Artificial intelligence is reshaping how people work across fields. In healthcare, its potential to expand access to expertise, support health workers, and improve the quality of care makes this transition especially consequential. This is particularly true across global health settings, which often face shortages of health workers and limited access to specialist expertise. As AI capabilities advance, the possibilities extend beyond making existing services more efficient to reimagining how care could reach people around the world.
As AI systems become more capable – and more embedded in care – decisions about whether and how to adopt them are no longer purely technical or operational. Both adoption and non-adoption can carry meaningful risks for patients and health systems, raising new ethical and governance questions. Technology companies and other actors outside government are playing a growing role in shaping this transition, with implications that reach well beyond the settings in which their tools are developed.
This panel will explore AI’s rapidly advancing capabilities, the opportunities and challenges they present for global health, and the new ethical and governance paradigms needed to guide their use.
**Opening Remarks:**
- [Kathy Kim](https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/people/kathy-kim), Carnegie Ethics Fellow
**Moderator:**
- [Rebecca Distler](https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/people/rebecca-distler), Carnegie Ethics Fellow
**Panelists:**
- [Sylvana Q. Sinha,](https://www.path.org/our-impact/media-center/path-board-of-directors-welcomes-sylvana-q-sinha/) Founder & Chair, Praava Health
**A New National Security Architecture: An Economic Security & Strategic Investment Framework for the Western Hemisphere**
**Run Time:** 1:00pm-2:00pm ET
*Fellows: Joshua Acosta and Denver Barrows*
As industrial policy and tools of economic statecraft have gained more prominence in the national security hierarchy for the United States, issues pertaining to democratic values and ethics must be closely examined. Latin America offers the most instructive example for this shift, as nations like Argentina and Chile align their economic security posture with Washington; the three largest economies—Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia—refuse to comply; and Venezuela has seen the overthrow of its leader, followed by economic coercion of its remaining government.
This panel will bring together experts of Latin America and economic statecraft to examine what is needed to ensure economic security and democracy processes run parallel to each other, not in competition. What would be the impact of an American sovereign wealth fund? What kind of economic security framework would demonstrate accountability and democratic governance consistent with the values and interests of the Western Hemisphere?
**Opening Remarks:**
- [Denver Barrows](https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/people/denver-barrows), Carnegie Ethics Fellow
**Moderator:**
- [Joshua Acosta](https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/people/joshua-acosta), Carnegie Ethics Fellow
**Panelists:**
- [Will Freeman](https://www.cfr.org/experts/will-freeman), Fellow for Latin America Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
- [Peter S. Goodman,](https://www.nytimes.com/by/peter-s-goodman) Global Economics Correspondent, *The New York Times*
- [Jodi Vittori](https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014SuuTAAS/jodi-vittori), Professor of Practice and Global Politics and Security Concentration Co-Chair, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
**Their Data, Whose Decision? The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Humanitarian Response**
**Run Time:** 3:00pm-4:00pm ET
*Fellows: Nicholas Bayer, Molly Schaeffer, and Alex Urwin*
As AI rapidly transforms our world, humankind has begun to identify both significant opportunities and complex ethical challenges across sectors—this is seen perhaps most clearly in the field of humanitarianism. AI has the potential to improve humanitarian action: it can help responders anticipate crises, allocate resources more efficiently, and reach vulnerable populations faster. But these benefits come with significant ethical risks—not only within the algorithms themselves, but within the data those algorithms rely on and generate.
This expert panel will examine critical questions around ensuring data privacy in the use of AI for humanitarian purposes, including how to determine when a technology should be used, whether and how to responsibly collect personal data, and how to ensure that an ethical framework can be applied during key decisions made at fast pace with limited resources.
**Opening Remarks:**
- [Nicholas Bayer](https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/people/nicholas-bayer), Carnegie Ethics Fellow
**Moderator:**
- [Molly Schaeffer](https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/people/molly-schaeffer), Carnegie Ethics Fellow
**Panelists:**
- [Jay Chaudhuri,](https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/who-we-are/us-office/people/jay-chaudhuri) Chief Technology Officer, Doctors Without Borders
- [Eleonore Fournier-Tombs,](https://its.ny.gov/news/new-york-state-office-information-technology-services-appoints-eleonore-fournier-tombs-chief) Chief AI Officer, New York State
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