Guests
Janice Beecher
Commissioner, Connecticut PURA; Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University
Daniel A. Zarrilli
Adjunct Professor, Columbia University
Sylvana Q. Sinha
Founder & Chair of the Board, Praava Health
Will Freeman
Fellow for Latin American Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
Peter S. Goodman
Global Economics Correspondent, The New York Times
Jodi Vittori
Professor of the Practice and Concentration Co-Chair for Global Politics and Security, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Jay Chaudhuri
Chief Technology Officer, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
Eleonore Fournier-Tombs
Chief AI Officer, New York State
Hosted by
Harsh Suri
Carnegie Ethics Fellow; The Geostrata
Nadav Avihay
Carnegie Ethics Fellow; SL Green
Rebecca Distler
Carnegie Ethics Fellow
Denver Barrows
Carnegie Ethics Fellow; Amazon
Joshua Acosta
Carnegie Ethics Fellow; Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, George Mason University
Nicholas Bayer
Carnegie Ethics Fellow; Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
Molly Schaeffer
Carnegie Ethics Fellow; New York City Department of Correction
Kathleen Egan
Senior Program Associate, Carnegie Council
Brian A. Mateo
Director of Education and Special Projects, Carnegie Council
Over two years, our 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 hosted the Carnegie Ethics Fellows Symposium on October 15, 2026, a day-long conference to discuss their projects, alongside experts working on these topics. Listen to the full event podcast or watch the four panels below.
Water as a Right or Commodity?
Access to safe, affordable, and reliable water is threatened by the pressures of climate change, rapid urbanization, population growth, infrastructure underinvestment, the 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 ethical issue, this panel brought together experts to discuss how societies should balance private economic interests against the public's right to clean and sustainable sources of water.
The Frontier at the Frontlines
In healthcare, AI has the potential to expand access to expertise, support health workers, and improve the quality of care, particularly across global health settings. As AI capabilities advance, the possibilities extend beyond making existing services more efficient to reimagining how care could reach people around the world.
This fireside chat explored 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.
A New National Security Architecture
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.
This panel brought 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 kind of economic security framework would demonstrate accountability and democratic governance consistent with the values and interests of the Western Hemisphere?
Their Data, Whose Decision?
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.
This expert panel examined 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.
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs is an independent and nonpartisan nonprofit. The views expressed within these panels and reports are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of Carnegie Council or the panelists’ employers.
