Faculty Affiliate Program

SRI’s Faculty Affiliate program is intended to expand our community’s expertise in the areas of technology and society. Faculty affiliates are provided with opportunities to participate in regular research exchanges and seminars, and to have the impact of their work amplified through our partners and communications channels. Faculty must hold an appointment at the University of Toronto, and may be at any stage of their career.

Applicants are considered for affiliation based on the alignment between their research interests and the mission and vision of the Institute, as well as potential engagement with the Schwartz Reisman community. Faculty affiliates are encouraged to participate in institutional activities including conferences, seminars, workshops, and discussion groups. Affiliates can expect role renewal with ongoing engagement.

To express interest in becoming an SRI faculty affiliate, please complete this form. For a current listing of SRI faculty affiliates, visit the People section of our website.

Faculty affiliate applications are reviewed on an ongoing basis.

Faculty and Graduate Fellowships

SRI offers fellowships to researchers within the University of Toronto community across all three U of T campuses. We welcome applicants from all academic disciplines across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities who are interested in developing interdisciplinary approaches towards the study of the complex relations between technology and society.

The 2024 call for Schwartz Reisman faculty and graduate fellowships is now closed. Graduate fellowship terms are one year, while faculty fellowship terms are two years. The application period will open again in fall 2024. See past calls for fellows for more information about the program:

• 2024 call for fellows

• 2023 call for fellows

Our fellowship program is designed to support innovative research and applications that contribute to the areas of ethical AI, data privacy, data governance, epistemology, human rights, and beyond. We are especially interested in solutions-oriented research that identifies new approaches through which problems at the intersection of technology and society might be better understood and addressed.

SRI fellows join our diverse community of research leads, faculty affiliates, and postdoctoral fellows to contribute to and lead activities at the Institute, including meetings, workshops, lectures, discussion groups, and other initiatives that foster our commitment to re-conceptualizing notions of the ways technology, systems, and society interact. Fellows will be encouraged to build community and drive collaboration both within and outside the Schwartz Reisman Institute.

Up to 15 graduate fellows and up to four faculty fellows will be appointed per application cycle. Successful graduate fellows will be primarily enrolled in PhD programs, although exceptional master’s degree candidates are encouraged to apply. Interested faculty fellow applicants may be at any stage of their career.

Global Fellow Program

Our Global Fellow Program offers an opportunity for an international scholar to visit the Schwartz Reisman Institute and University of Toronto and receive room and board and financial support for their research at the University of Toronto’s Massey College. Engagement opportunities with the SRI community include weekly seminar series, monthly research activities (ideas exchange, social events, and research sharing), our annual academic conference, and other activities.

Faculty applicants must hold an academic appointment at another institution and may be at any stage of their career and will be evaluated with career stage as a consideration. Recipients will be required to provide a letter from their home institution confirming that they hold an academic position, that they will return to that position when the visit at the University of Toronto ends, and the dates they will hold the position.

Learn more by reviewing our 2023 Call for Global Fellow (PDF).

Our current call for SRI Global Fellow is closed; our next call for this program will be announced in early 2024.

Scholar-in-Residence Program

The Scholar-in-Residence Program is designed for a local or national scholar to visit the Schwartz Reisman Institute and University of Toronto and receive office and financial support for their research at the University of Toronto’s Massey College. Engagement opportunities with the SRI community include weekly seminar series, monthly research activities (ideas exchange, social events, and research sharing), our annual academic conference, and other activities.

Faculty applicants must hold an academic appointment at another institution and may be at any stage of their career and will be evaluated with career stage as a consideration. Recipients will be required to provide a letter from their home institution confirming that they hold an academic position, that they will return to that position when the visit at the University of Toronto ends, and the dates they will hold the position.

Our call for SRI Scholar-in-Residence is currently closed.

Embedded Ethics Education Initiative

The Embedded Ethics Education Initiative (E3I) is a collaborative project between the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, and most recently, the Department of Philosophy. The program brings together a multi-disciplinary team from computer science, philosophy, and psychology to create educational modules that are embedded within undergraduate computer science courses, creating authentic connections between technical computing concepts and ethical considerations for the potential applications of those concepts. 

E3I was initiated by SRI Associate Director Sheila McIlraith, professor of computer science, and is co-led by McIlraith together with professors Diane Horton and David Liu, computer science teaching-stream professors. The team also includes scholars who specialize in ethics from U of T’s Department of Philosophy. As of May 2022, the cumulative reach of the program has extended to over 4,000 students.

Explore E3I’s modules, and read about the pilot launch.

Discussion Groups

AI Safety

Co-organized by SRI Associate Director Sheila McIlraith and Postdoctoral Fellow Toryn Klassen, the interdisciplinary joint Vector/SRI AI Safety discussion group convenes researchers once per month to examine topics in AI safety including task (mis-)specification, robustness, fairness, interpretability, verification, and regulation. This initiative is designed to encourage synergies between SRI, the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, the University of Toronto’s Department of Computer Science, and the U of T community more broadly in the area of AI safety. The group also operates a mailing list. To join the list, attend the monthly discussions, or view background resources on AI safety, please visit the Toronto AI Safety webpage to sign up.

Privacy Discussion Group

SRI’s Privacy Discussion Group brings together an interdisciplinary group of faculty and students seeking to understand emerging privacy issues related to technology and society. Topics have included data governance, facial recognition, privacy in AI/ML, and data for social good. Some meetings are informal discussions about recent issues in the news, such as privacy issues in large language models or proposed privacy rules. Others centre around a discussion of a member's research project. The group meets monthly in a hybrid format. To learn more, please get in touch with the group.