Ethical Cities

The Ethical Cities Program, launched by the Notre Dame–IBM Technology Ethics Lab in the summer of 2024, is a community-focused research translation endeavor that brings Notre Dame faculty and students together with local organizations to develop technology and policy solutions to real-world challenges in the South Bend region.

Faculty investigators represent disciplines as diverse as economics, computer science, architecture, and civil engineering, and community partners include the City of South Bend, the St. Joseph River Basin Commission, and the Near Northwest Neighborhood. These projects are being supported with $20,000 each.

The complete list of research teams includes:

• Georgina Curto Rex (Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society) is collaborating with the City of South Bend’s Department of Innovation & Technology on an Ethical Procurement Guide for City Data Services

• Yong Suk Lee (Keough School of Global Affairs) is collaborating with the City of South Bend’s Department of Innovation & Technology on GenAI vs. Procured Services: A Framework to Approach City Government Decisions

• Valentina Kuskova (Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society) is collaborating with the City of South Bend’s Department of Innovation & Technology on an Exploration of Synthetic Data Use for Transparency

• Alan Hamlet (Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences) is collaborating with the St. Joseph River Basin Commission on Hydrologic and Water Quality Impact Study on Bowman Creek

• Matthew Sisk (Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society) and Ming Hu (School of Architecture) is collaborating with the Near Northwest Neighborhood on Health and Environmental Risks in a South Bend Neighborhood