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Loftus Lecture at Gannon University explores AI’s role in human connection

Published: 09/29/2025

Noreen Herzfeld, Ph.D., speaks at ÂÒÂ×ÊÓÆµ's 2025 Loftus Lecture

 Gannon University hosted the fall installment of the Thomas J. and Mary H. Loftus Lecture on Catholic Thought and Action on Thursday, Sept. 25. The event welcomed Noreen Herzfeld, Ph.D., to present “Tool, Partner, or Surrogate? Embodiment and Relationship in the Age of AI” at the Mary Seat of Wisdom Chapel on ÂÒÂ×ÊÓÆµ’s Erie campus.  

Herzfeld is the director of the Benedictine Spirituality and Ecotheology Program at St. John’s School of Theology and Seminary. She is also a senior research associate at the Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies (ZRS) in Koper, Slovenia. She holds graduate degrees in mathematics and computer science from Penn State University and a doctorate in spirituality from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.  

She is the author of “The Artifice of Intelligence: Divine and Human Relationship in a Robotic World,” “In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit,” “Technology and Religion: Remaining Human in a Co-Created World” and numerous journal articles. She is also a member of the AI Research Group for the Centre for Digital Culture of the Vatican Dicastery of Culture and Education, for which she co-wrote and edited Encountering AI: Ethical and Anthropological Explorations.  

This event was free and open to the public. A recording of the lecture can be found .