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Nathan C. Walker
Keynote Speaker
Positive, practical solutions for navigating AI ethics and law.
  • Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Resident researching AI and human rights.
About
Trending Speaking Topics
  • AI Ethics
  • Responsible Technology
  • Democracy
Speaking Categories
  • AI - Emerging Tech
  • Diversity, Inclusion & Gender Equality
  • Education, Policy & Practice
  • Government & Politics
  • Health & Wellbeing
  • Human Rights
  • Government & Global Affairs
  • Law, First Amendment, Civil Rights
  • Resilience, Well-being, Happiness
  • Society, Culture, & Education
  • Technology, Innovation & Science
  • Technology Ethics - Regulation
Dr. Nathan C. Walker is an award-winning First Amendment and human rights educator and founder of the AI Ethics Lab at Rutgers University.
He has held research appointments at Harvard, Oxford, and Stellenbosch University in South Africa. The Rockefeller Foundation awarded him a sabbatical as a Bellagio Center Resident to advance his research on AI ethics and human rights.
A certified AI Ethics Officer, Dr. Walker has worked with industry as an Expert AI Trainer for OpenAI and Handshake AI, provided ethics training to Adobe employees, and facilitated a working group at Google’s ethics-to-industry summit.
He has published five books on law, education, and religion, and presented his research at the UN Human Rights Council, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the U.S. Senate.
He earned his doctorate in First Amendment law and two master’s degrees from Columbia University. An ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, he holds a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary.
He is the president of 1791 Delegates, a public charity named after the year the Bill of Rights was ratified. In this capacity he founded the social learning community ReligionAndPublicLife.org.
He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA with his husband, Vikram Paralkar.
Why Book Dr. Walker?
Industry Experience
Dr. Walker has served as an Expert AI Trainer at OpenAI and a research fellow at Handshake AI, facilitated the governance working group at an AI ethics-to-industry symposium at Google, and led a workshop on training AI models with rights for Adobe employees.
He has given talks at leading industry conferences, including Ai4 in Las Vegas, Utah Tech Week, and the Futures AI Summit in London.
Impactful Research
Dr. Walker founded the AI Ethics Lab at Rutgers and built research collaborations with scholars from the Institute for Ethics in AI at the Technical University of Munich and Stellenbosch University in South Africa, where Dr. Walker serves as a non-resident research associate.
Dr. Walker has served as a visiting academic at the University of Oxford's Institute for Ethics in AI, a resident research fellow at Harvard University, and has given invited talks at Princeton University, Columbia University, the University of Kansas, Virginia Tech, and Utah Valley University.
Global Policy Engagement
Dr. Walker’s AI Ethics Lab co-published a human rights report presented at the Human Rights Council, and Dr. Walker helped moderate a North-South policy dialogue on the proposed UN Convention on AI, Data and Human Rights.
He has also served as a contributing researcher to the Aspen Institute’s “Defining Technologies of Our Time” initiative, and Dr. Walker’s research on AI Principles and U.S. Presidents maps the ethical implications in federal executive orders.
Human Flourishing
Dr. Walker teaches a course on Happiness at Rutgers University, which explores evidence-based approaches to human flourishing. In November 2016, Publishers Weekly listed his book Cultivating Empathy as one of “six books for a post-election spiritual detox.”
Speaking Topics
Dr. Walker offers keynote presentations, leadership retreats, workshops, and custom ethics and legal education programs for leaders across industry, policy, academia, and community organizations.
Moral Imagination: From Smart to Wise AI
Is “smart” the best we can imagine for the century’s technological advancements, or can we build something wiser? This keynote explores how moral imagination can spark an ethical odyssey toward a wiser future.
Most Requested
Formats:
Keynote
Leadership Retreat
Workshop
Contexts:
Conventions
C-Suite
Industry
Community
Bounded Freedom: Human Expression in the Age of Co-Intelligence
What does free expression mean when seemingly conscious machines can generate and mimic our thoughts, language, and identities?
Formats:
Keynote
Workshop
Contexts:
Education
Community
Arts & Culture
Policy
Training AI Models with Rights
A practical framework for embedding human rights into the design, training, and governance of AI systems, from Dr. Nathan C. Walker, the founding editor of the AI & Human Rights Index.
Formats:
Executive Briefing
Policy Roundtable
Staff Development
Contexts:
Industry
Government
NGOs
Trustworthy Legal Practices in the Age of Co-Intelligence
How can legal and justice organizations adopt generative AI while preserving trust, accountability, and ethical integrity?
Formats:
Legal Briefing
Workshop
Contexts:
Law
Government
Nonprofit Advocacy
Books
Forthcoming:
Moral Imagination: Our Ethical Odyssey from Smart to Wise AI
Is “smart” the best we can imagine for this century’s technological advancements?
Many harms caused by AI are not due to a lack of intelligence but to the moral distance between the people who own, build, and regulate AI systems and those affected by them. Think of the physical and cultural distance between those in Silicon Valley and a product’s deployment in Kenya, or the psychological distance between a developer and the children using their AI companions.
To close these gaps, Dr. Nathan C. Walker, founder of the AI Ethics Lab at Rutgers University, introduces moral imagination as an applied design practice: the ability to picture yourself in an ethical dilemma involving AI to understand competing points of view.
Unlike compliance protocols that can chill ethical reflection, this approach invites investors, designers, developers, deployers, and regulators of AI to immerse themselves in the users’ experiences. In doing so, they identify ethical blind spots and cultivate empathy for people whose lives are shaped by their decisions.
Given AI’s impact on every part of society, Moral Imagination also empowers users of AI from rejecting playing a passive role in technology’s advancements but an active moral agent. The stories in this book speak directly to people shaping the responsible tech movement in classrooms, courtrooms, boardrooms, and design studios. Through engaging role-plays, this book offers educators, technologists, justice workers, and business leaders a shared ethical vocabulary for engaging the moral issues of our time.
When we embed the practice of moral imagination into every stage of the AI lifecycle, we shift our focus from creating smart technology to empowering humans to make wise choices.
Solo Authored Books
Nathan C. Walker, The First Amendment and State Bans on Teachers’ Religious Garb. New York: Routledge, Hardback 2019. Paperback 2021.
“A thorough, magisterial account of a timely and historically important legal debate.” ~ Kirkus Reviews
Nathan C. Walker, Cultivating Empathy: The Worth and Dignity of Every Person—Without Exception. Boston, MA: Skinner House Press, 2016.
In November 2016, Publishers Weekly listed Cultivating Empathy as one of “six books for a post-election spiritual detox.”
Nathan C. Walker, Exorcising Preaching: Crafting Intellectually Honest Worship. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2014.
“Bold, creative and provocative, focused powerfully on a witness of liberation.” ~ Rev. Burns Stanfield, Instructor, Harvard Divinity School
Edited Volumes
Michael D. Waggoner and Nathan C. Walker, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Religion and American Education. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
"A comprehensive and probing guide to the meeting of schools and faith in the American experience." ~ Kirkus Reviews
Nathan C. Walker & Edwin J. Greenlee, eds., Whose God Rules? Is the United States a Secular Nation or a Theolegal Democracy? New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Foreword by Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Contributors included Martha Nussbaum and Kent Greenawalt.
Speaking Schedule
6.5K connections
4.7K followers
2026 Events
  1. Aug. 2026 – Our Ethical Odyssey from Smart to Wise AI. Ai4, Las Vegas, NV.
  1. Aug. 2026 – Representation Matters: Building Inclusive Teams and Ethical Systems. Ai4, Las Vegas, NV.
  1. Apr. 2026 – AI, Ethics, and Safety in Suicide Prevention. Riverside Trauma Center, Dedham, MA.
  1. Mar. 2026 – Bounded Freedom: Human Expression in the Age of AI, Pennington Public Library, Pennington, NJ.
  1. Feb. 2026 – The AI & Human Rights Index, International Association for Safe & Ethical AI, UNESCO House, Paris, France.
  1. Feb. 2026 – AI & Human Rights. Envision Conference, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.
  1. Jan. 2026 – Trustworthy Legal Practices in the Age of Co-Intelligence, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, Newark, NJ.
  1. Jan. 2026 – Ethical Use of AI in Psychiatry, Society for Liaison Psychiatry, New York, NY.
  1. Jan. 2026 – AI & Ethics, Madison & Lila Self Graduate Fellows, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.
  1. Jan. 2026 – Co-Intelligence: An Ethical Odyssey from Smart to Wise AI, Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.
2025 Events
  1. Workshop Facilitator: Responsible AI in Nonprofit Management, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, Newark, NJ.
  1. Guest Lecture: Ethical AI for Future Developers, South Brunswick High School, Monmouth Junction, NJ
  1. Featured Talk: AI Ethics: From Smart to Wise Technology, Future AI Summit, London, UK.
  1. Working Group Facilitator: AI Ethics-to-Industry: From Principles to Practice, Google, San Francisco, CA.
  1. Guest Lecture: Ethical Decision-Making for Communicators, Columbia University, NY, NY.
  1. Keynote: Moral Imagination: From Smart to Wise AI. Ethics Awareness Week. Utah Valley University, Orem, UT.
  1. Workshop Facilitator: AI Principles & U.S. Presidents. Utah Valley University, Orem, UT.
  1. Workshop Facilitator: Training AI Models with Rights, Civics at Work for Adobe Employees, Orem, UT.
  1. Moderator: North–South Policy Dialogue on a UN Convention on AI, Data and Human Rights. Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
  1. Panelist: Sectoral Impacts of AI on Human Rights. North–South Policy Dialogue on a UN Convention on AI, Data and Human Rights. Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
  1. Solo Talk: From Moral Distance to Moral Imagination. Ai4, Las Vegas, NV.
  1. Featured Expert: Ask Me Anything. Ai4, Las Vegas, NV.
  1. Fireside Chat: Fostering Diversity in AI: Building Inclusive Technologies and Teams. Ai4, Las Vegas, NV.
  1. Roundtable: AI Global Safety: Preventing Catastrophic Risks. Globethics, Geneva, Switzerland.
  1. Lecture: Driving the Future: Opportunities and Challenges of Autonomous Vehicles. Globethics, Geneva, Switzerland.
  1. Moderator: Scaling AI Ethics: Local Case Studies, Global Implications, National Liberty Museum, Philadelphia, PA.
  1. Keynote: Moral Imagination: From Smart to Wise Technology, International Rescue Committee, New York, NY.
  1. Panelist: Building Self-Sufficiency with AI. International Rescue Committee, New York, NY.
  1. Guest Lecture: From Smart to Wise Cities. Smart Cities for Good, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA.
  1. Workshop: AI & Polling Research: Ethical Considerations. Public Religion Research Institute, Washington, DC.
  1. Panelist: Responsible Tech in the Throes of Innovation. Utah Tech Week, Salt Lake City, UT.
Contact
For speaking engagements, please contact: Lisa Reiter at Chartwell Speakers: lisa@chartwellspeakers.com