Kopenhaver Center conference explores creativity in the age of AI

Attend the free, public virtual conference Wednesday, Oct. 21, from 10 a.m. to noon EDT.

What do creativity and originality mean when artificial intelligence increasingly shapes how we communicate? And how might our understanding of an authentic voice change along with the tools we use?

Those questions frame “Creativity and Originality in a Tech-Saturated World,” the 2026 National Conference of FIU’s Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication. The center prepares women for leadership in communication and works to increase their representation in industry decision-making.

The challenge reaches beyond mastering new tools to reconsidering how creative judgment develops through experience, and how one generation of communicators helps the next find its voice.

Dr. Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver, the center’s founder and executive director, said, “In our tech-saturated world, it is so important that, as information is disseminated, we do not lose the individual voices of those sharing it. After all, we trust the communicator for accurate information, which AI and other forms of technology do not always provide. Our speakers show us how major communication organizations handle technology today.”

Women leading the industry

Keynote speaker Kristel Valencia-Savage, head of communications for FIFA World Cup 2026, brings experience communicating around international sporting events. She joined FIFA in 2024 after a 17-year career at Major League Soccer and oversees corporate communications and content for FIFA’s World Cup efforts.

The Thought Leader Forum includes an FIU graduate whose career has crossed journalism, marketing and global brands. Julie Delazyn ’07, U.S. vice president and head of brand image and experience at L’Oréal Paris, studied journalism and French literature at FIU. She began her career at the Miami Herald and later worked at The New York Times in Paris.

Joining her are Jessica E. Davis, vice president of AI product at USA TODAY Co., and Stacy-Marie Ishmael, senior executive editor and global head of newsroom training at Bloomberg News. Christina Boomer Vazquez, a reporter at WPLG Local 10, will serve as convener.

Together, their backgrounds give students a view of storytelling across newsrooms, consumer brands and global sports, with AI and originality as the shared focus.

A decade of women’s voices on leadership

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Kopenhaver Center’s inaugural national conference, which examined gender equity in communication in 2016. Since then, the series has connected women’s leadership with a changing media landscape. The 2024 theme, “Inspiring Change, Making a Difference: Finding Your Voice,” explored voice and agency; “AI & the Future of Communication” in 2025 examined emerging technology and its ethical and factual limits. This year brings those concerns together, linking questions of voice and creative judgment to the possibilities and uncertainties of working with AI.

FIU student Xitlalic Montelongo plans to attend and cover the event, including Valencia-Savage’s keynote. Montelongo said, “I’m especially interested in learning how AI has influenced media, communication and journalism, and how she balances emerging technology with creativity and originality.”

She added, “Events like this help prepare students for the professional world, and I hope to highlight that through my coverage.”

The event welcomes students, faculty, staff, alumni, and members of the public. Additional details are available on the FIU Calendar.