Justin Norman, a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley’s School of Information, is one of 14 Fellows chosen for the 2025 Design & Technology (D&T) Program of the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE).
Now in its fifteenth year of operation, FASPE annually grants 80-90 Fellowships to graduate students and early-career professionals in the fields of Design & Technology, Business, Journalism, Law, Medicine, and Clergy. Fellows participate in a two-week program in Germany and Poland, which uses the conduct of professionals in Nazi-occupied Europe as an initial framework for approaching ethical responsibility in the professions today.
The FASPE curriculum takes advantage of the power of place with daily seminars and dialogue at sites of historic importance, often specific to their profession. The experience of the D&T Fellows is enhanced by traveling alongside the Business and Law fellows, who — in formal and informal settings—consider together how ethical constructs and norms in their respective professions align and differ.
Each year, Fellowship cohorts are led by FASPE professionals; two Faculty members (scholars and/or practitioners), and partners on the ground in Germany and Poland. The D&T Program will be led by Kasia Chmielinski, Co-Founder of the Data Nutrition Project, and Mary Gray, Fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research.
At the School of Information, Norman is advised by Hany Farid. His award-winning research work is centered at the intersection of computer science, AI/ML-enabled computer vision, generative AI and tech policy. His recent projects have focused on the technical exploration and robustness of traditional and generative computer vision systems in applied AI use cases. He is also a recipient of the Marcus Foster Fellowship. Norman also has a rich background in both the private sector and government, as an accomplished AI and data science technical leader, research scientist and published author.
Looking ahead to the upcoming fellowship trip, Norman says, “FASPE is a unique opportunity to study and understand the challenges of technical design choices, decision making, leadership, and professional ethics through the lens of some of humanity’s most difficult moments.
I hope to contribute to this vital body of professional knowledge, to meet new colleagues who bring different perspectives and skills than I have, and to enhance my ethical reasoning and decision-making skills as a technologist. I am eager to join conversations with fellow participants in order to help shape a future technology landscape that better serves us all.”
