Mark Graves
My research focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI), ethics, and spirituality from computational, psychological, and philosophical perspectives. Computationally, my work involves data science and natural language processing (NLP) for the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry, with a particular interest in using AI/NLP to improve health equity. I also use NLP for psychology research, especially moral psychology. My philosophical research has focused on understanding the human person from biological, cognitive, and spiritual perspectives, and now I use that to explore moral AI.
CURRENT RESEARCH AREAS
Data Science Ethics
How can ethics be incorporated into the development and analysis of complex AI and ML systems?
Constructing Moral AI
How can AI acquire moral skills similar to what humans have or aspire?
Human-AI Sociotechnical Interaction
How can people and AI mutually understand and interpret each other in relationship and sociotechnical communities?
MY BACKGROUND
I studied computer science through graduate school and wrote my dissertation at the University of Michigan focusing on artificial intelligence and ways to represent knowledge for machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP). As I explored real-world applications of my research, I became interested in genetics, undertook a postdoctoral fellowship in genomics at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), and was one of the first computer scientists to work on the Human Genome Project. My initial research to represent genomic data and other molecular biology relationships for AI led to building over two dozen progressively larger and better engineered database systems in biotech and pharmaceutical industries making use of emerging web technologies. Deciding to engage my growing interest in relating my scientific training and religious upbringing and possibly pursing a new direction for my career, I earned a masters degree in theology at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) and Jesuit School of Theology (JST), initially focusing on ethics and spirituality and then becoming more engaged in philosophical and systematic theology in relation to science at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS). While continuing additional research on the relationship between religion and cognitive science, I taught graduate and undergraduate courses on science and religion at GTU, Santa Clara University (SCU), and the University of California Berkeley.
Continuing my exploration of cognition and spirituality, I joined a research project at Fuller Theological Seminary (Fuller) and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to study the neuroscience and psychology of exemplary compassionate caregivers. While studying moral psychology, I began using AI/NLP techniques to study psychological interviews for factors affecting the caregiver's and other's ways of thinking and forming their identity. After later working in the healthcare industry to strengthen my applied data science and NLP skills, I worked two years at the University of Notre Dame on a fellowship to better understand the possible interactions between moral psychology, AI, and moral theology. I've since continued to interleave building and using my practical AI/ML/NLP skills in healthcare industry and research projects at the intersection of AI, ethics, and morality.
EDUCATION
- Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA
School of Psychology, Travis Research Institute
Postdoctoral Fellowship (Moral Psychology and Neuroscience of Virtue) - Graduate Theological Union/Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, CA
MA (Systematic & Philosophical Theology) - Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
Dept. of Cell Biology
Postdoctoral Fellowship (Genomics) - University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
PhD, Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) - Georgia Institute of Technology
MS, Computer Science (Cognitive Science) - University of Miami
BS, Mathematics and Computer Science
