April 15, 2025 2:00pm | AI Usage and Meaning Making
Posted in: Events
This event features Lee Rainie, Director of Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center and former director of internet and technology research at Pew Research Center. Lee will present new data on U.S. AI adoption patterns and offer insights into how artificial intelligence may shape society by 2040. He will be joined by Dr. Shyam Sharma, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director at Stony Brook University, whose work bridges the arts and sciences through the lens of writing and rhetoric. Together, they will explore the cultural, cognitive, and social dimensions of meaning-making in an AI-driven era.
About the series
“Justice Entrepreneurship: Markets, Justice Experiences and AI” aims at interdisciplinary collaboration among faculty and students, focusing on the intersections of justice, entrepreneurship, and artificial intelligence. The series includes several presentations and discussions, from September 2024 through April 2025. Each session will feature expert speakers on topics such as AI’s impact on entrepreneurship, governance, and community services. The expected outcomes include enhanced interdisciplinary scholarship and a reimagining of justice experiences through the lens of AI and entrepreneurship.
This event will be hybrid. For the webinar, register here.
It is held at Montclair State University’s Feliciano School of Business, room 140
Tuesday, April 15, 2025 at 2:00 PM
If you intend to participate in person, please RSVP here.
Speaker Bios
Lee Rainie is the Director of the Digital Future Center at Elon University. He joined the Center in 2023 after 24 years of directing Pew Research Center’s efforts to study the internet and technology. At the Pew Internet Project, his team produced more than 850 reports about the social, political and economic impact of four technology revolutions: the internet/broadband revolution, the mobile connectivity revolution, the social media revolution, and the artificial intelligence revolution.
Shyam Sharma is Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director at the College of Arts and Sciences, Stony Brook University, NY. He is a scholar and teacher of writing and rhetoric who studies academic writing and communication at the intersection of the arts and sciences.
Moderator
David Axelrod is a researcher at Project AROS Lab at Montclair State University. He has taught for eight years, and developed the course Economics of Time and Mind, as well as co-developed Religion and Economics with Prof. John Soboslai. He also recorded a series of podcasts for the Feliciano School of Business. Previously he worked in the financial sector for twenty years. David received his PhD. in Economics from Rutgers University. He also plays electric bass and produced over a dozen albums of original music. David’s research has its foundations in issues around time preference, experiences as economic products/resources, and the mind (individual and social) as a scarce resource than can be developed and grown.
Other Participants
Ethné Swartz, Ph.D., is a Professor of Information Management and Entrepreneurship and a 2018-2019 Fulbright Scholar. She previously served at Fairleigh Dickinson University, where she chaired the Marketing and Entrepreneurship Department and was associate dean at the Silberman College of Business. She holds a PhD in Management from the University of Manchester and an MS in Information Systems from Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research focuses on entrepreneurship, innovation, business continuity, and crisis management. Dr. Swartz has conducted research on women’s entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa and co-authored two books. She has published widely in journals including the International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship and Business Horizons. Dr. Swartz is a dedicated member of the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE), serving as a board member and on the editorial board of the Annals of Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy. She is also active in supporting New Jersey’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Fiona (Freddie) Harris Ramsby is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing at Bloomfield College in New Jersey. She is also the Artistic Producer at The Company @ Bloomfield College, a collaborative student, staff, and faculty theatre initiative dedicated to promoting and producing new works and emerging artists.
