Latest News

The 9th of August marked the end of the first stage of the `Socially self-aware Multi-Robot System project'. Over the span of 10 weeks, Aditya and Nick took great strides towards our research objectives.

A huge congratulations to Zahra Ahmadi on successfully defending her Master’s thesis! Zahra’s research produced comprehensive and systematic evidence that most research into new AI tools for people with disabilities is sadly not evaluated with the communities it is designed to help, and importantly, that this is leading to unidentified risks and failures that can cause harm.

Dr. Peter R. Lewis and Ph.D. Candidate Nathan Lloyd attended the International Conference for Artificial Life (ALife) which brings together researchers invested in the synthesis and simulation of living systems.

On July 17th, following a successful Master’s defense, Parisa presented her research entitled: Bias and Fairness in Transfer Learning to an AI comunity group based in Birmingham, UK; BrumAI. Parisa presented virtually to over 90 participants, receiving great feedback from the attendees.

First, a huge congratulations to the now Parisa Salmani MSc for successfully defending their thesis entitled Bias and Fairness in Transfer Learning. Parisa’s research demonstrated, for the first time, that the use of transfer learning (a common technique used in all sorts of applications of machine learning) can lead to the introduction of new demographic bias and hence introduce discrimination against particular sub-populations.

As the academic year draws to a close, it was the pleasure of the Trustworthy AI Lab to host Ontario Tech’s inaugural AI Research Summer Barbecue and Networking Event. It took place on Friday the 28th of June, welcoming faculty, postdoctoral, and student researchers working in the broad area of AI & Intelligent Machines.

On June 3rd, Aditya Ravi and Nicholas Lee joined the Trustworthy AI Lab as developers on the socially self-aware multi-robot system project. Aditya and Nicholas will be working together to explore the themes raised in prior research, to develop socially self-aware robots with TurtleBot 4s.

On May 27th and 28th, Zahra Ahmadi and Joelma Peixoto had the incredible opportunity to attend the Accessible Canada - Accessible World / Un Canada accessible - Un monde accessible Conference.

We’re excited to announce that two new graduate students are joining the Trustworthy AI Lab. First, an official welcome to PhD student Andrew Putman. Andrew joined the lab earlier this year while completing their master’s degree from the Faculty of Health Sciences, here at Ontario Tech.

Zahra Ahmadi has been featured in the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) recorded discussion to honour #GlobalAccessibilityAwarenessDay (GAAD) in a meeting with almost 150 participants! Akriti Pandey, of CNIB, and Zahra Ahmadi had an insightful discussion on the importance of inclusive and accessible AI technologies, existing gaps and limitations associated with AI-based assistive technologies.