Name: Yvette Pearson
Title/Organization: Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Strategic Initiatives; Professor, Philosophy and Religious Studies at Old Dominion University
APPE Member Since: 2010

APPE is heading to Norfolk, Virginia, which is home to Old Dominion. Tell us about the city and what attendees should expect, outside of the conference.
Norfolk is a welcoming city with plenty to do but without the intensity of some larger cities. Near the conference hotel (The Main), you’ll find plenty of good restaurants apart from those in the hotel (e.g., Luce, Codex, 219 Bistro, Glass Light, 456 Fish, Ilo Bistro) as well as museums and galleries to explore. Conference attendees might enjoy perusing Prince Books, a favorite local bookstore, or the Selden Arcade with additional local shops and restaurants, both of which are a few steps from The Main. One interesting collection of contemporary glass art is on the first and second floors of the Glass Light Hotel, which is about a block away from the conference hotel. For a larger collection of glass art, a glass studio, as well as art in other media can be viewed at the Chrysler Museum of Art, which is about one mile north of the conference hotel. The start of the APPE conference will coincide with the Chrysler Museum’s opening of a new exhibition, Oaxaca Central: Contemporary Mexican Printmaking. In addition to the Chrysler, on the campus of Old Dominion University (ODU), which is about 3.5 miles from The Main, attendees may also want to visit the Barry Art Museum and the Gordon Galleries. Just east of ODU on Colley Avenue is the Ryan Resilience Lab, which showcases how the region is addressing sea-level rise and the revitalization and preservation of the Elizabeth River. There are several more restaurants nearby, including Luna Maya, Crudo Nudo. For attendees who like to run or walk outdoors, Norfolk has a 10-mile Elizabeth River Trail that runs from downtown, along the Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) campus (2 miles from The Main), which is now part of ODU, and into the West Ghent with more places to find food and victuals (e.g., Chelsea Bake House, Grandiflora Wine Garden, which serves vegetarian dishes and natural wines, Smartmouth Brewing, Benchtop Brewing, 508 Craft House, Vessel Craft Coffee).

And what about the conference itself? As a member of the Conference Committee, what are you looking forward to about the actual conference?
APPE has long been a favorite conference with its consistently diverse array of scholars and sessions and its extraordinarily supportive and welcoming atmosphere for early career scholars and those who engage in interdisciplinary and collaborative scholarly activity. I am looking forward to participating as a panelist with Jason Borenstein, Joe Herkert, and Keith Miller about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the fields of computer ethics, engineering ethics, research ethics, and bioethics. We’ll be addressing questions within and across these domains of professional ethics. The plenary and keynote sessions have always been a highlight for me, and I am looking forward to the opening plenary on Ethics and Technology in National Security as well as Travis Reider’s keynote on Catastrophe Ethics. I am also very excited to see what emerges from the call for late-breaking sessions.

What is your area of expertise and what do you hope to be speaking on and/or learning about at the conference?
My areas of expertise include bioethics, robot ethics, and crisis communication ethics. At this year’s conference, I will be speaking on the impact of artificial intelligence on medicine, healthcare, and bioethical inquiry itself. I hope to learn more about how colleagues across these domains of practical ethics are grappling with the impact of AI and other major changes affecting higher education on their research programs and pedagogical practices.

What are you looking forward to in 2025, personally or professionally?
I am in my second year as Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Strategic Initiatives at ODU, which has recently merged with Eastern Virginia Medical School, so I look forward to continuing to support faculty through this major institutional transformation as we work toward complete integration of the two institutions.