Stephen Maly recently retired from Helena Civic Television and relocated to Bozeman to pursue opportunities to further a multi-disciplinary project called the Global Civics Initiative. Stephen’s academic background includes an M.A. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies and a B.A. in international affairs from the University of Colorado (Boulder). He spent a year at the University of Sussex as a Rotary Scholar and enjoyed a two-year fellowship in Canada from the Institute of Current World Affairs. As a self-described “paradiplomat,” Maly has produced documentaries about Montana’s formal ties with China and Taiwan, the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, and Canada, as well as programs on UN Peacekeeping in the Balkans and transnational peace parks in conflict zones. He is currently working on a book of essays as part of the Global Civics endeavor, and is as curious and perplexed as anyone about the mixed, oftentimes contradictory roles that advanced technologies—droned, satellites, surveillance systems, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and a host of others—play in the realm of foreign affairs.

Robert Whited is the Director of Information Technology at Carroll College.  More details coming soon…

Bonnie Sheehay is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Montana State University specializing in philosophy of technology, ethics, and social & political philosophy.  She earned her PhD in philosophy from University of Oregon. Within the scope of technology, Bonnie’s work addresses ethical issues of current technologies, especially as these are used in the criminal justice system in the U.S. Her work focuses on the way these technologies reinforce or exacerbate racial inequities in the carceral system. She also collaborates on research grants with computer scientists and librarians on a range of ethical issues related to artificial intelligence. Her current project examines the treatment of prisoners who die in prison and are buried in prison cemeteries.

Ross P. Nelson is a award-winning playwright, co-founder and president of Raven’s Feather Productions, and a techie!  He has both an MFA in creative writing (from New Orleans University) and a degree in Computer Science (from Montana State University).

With respect to his artistic work, he has had over two dozen of his short plays have produced in the US and overseas, was honored (back in the day) with an emerging playwright award from Playground San Francisco, had a ten-minute play featured on The Movie Network in Australia, and is the author of prize-winning short fiction and two technical books. He taught undergraduate playwriting at UNO, and more recently at Carroll College.  He  is a member of the Dramatists Guild and served as playwright-in-residence at the Can Serrat artists colony in Spain during October 2017.

In the tech world, Ross worked for Intel in Silicon Valley, helped create one of the first laptop computer systems at Gavilan, worked for Answer Software, got into multimedia at Kaleida Labs and followed that project to Apple Computer after the Labs were shut down by Apple and IBM. In the process he spent a few years at IBM’s Almaden Research Center working on a web-scale data mining project called WebFountain, and developed some search quality analysis tools for their enterprise search product. Later he joined Google, working first on the Google Calendar project, then Google+.

Ed Glowienka is a Professor of Philosophy at Carroll College.  Ed grew up in Philadelphia, the son of parents who never attended college and who sacrificed significantly for his education. He went to the University of Scranton to study biochemistry, but left with a degree in philosophy with minors in German and theology. He then spent two years working with Spiritan missionaries, teaching philosophy to students from six African nations at the Spiritan Missionary Seminary in Arusha, Tanzania. Ed earned his Ph.D. from Emory University in 2013. His research is in early modern philosophy, with projects in both metaphysics and moral philosophy.  His research interests are in early modern philosophy, ethics, and metaphysics. He is the author of Leibniz’s Metaphysics of Harmony He has been awarded three NEH grants for the seminar Re-Enchanting Nature: Humanities Perspectives. Ed enjoys cooking, gardening, hiking, basketball, and forcing philosophical questions on his kids. He is reminded that he wrote his undergraduate thesis on the philosophy of technology, and so has been thinking about tech in one way or another for a long time. His favorite piece of modern technology is probably his Bluetooth speaker.  

William “Mark” Smillie is the Department Chair of Philosophy at Carroll College.  He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. His special interests include the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, philosophical anthropology, ancient and medieval philosophy, environmental ethics, bioethics, and business ethics. He serves on the Ethics Committee at St. Peter’s Hospital, is the advisor for Phi Sigma Tau Honor Society, and is a founder and board member of St. Andrew School, a K-12 school in Helena.  Away from the classroom he enjoys spending time with his family, hiking in beautiful Montana, and photography. Dr. Smillie’s book, Augustine and the Environment, co-edited with John Doody and Kim Paffenroth, was released in September, 2016.