Schwartz Reisman Institute welcomes 24 new faculty affiliates for 2025–26
The Schwartz Reisman Institute welcomes 24 new faculty affiliates for the 2025–2026 academic year—its largest incoming cohort to date.
The Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society (SRI) is pleased to announce the appointment of 24 new faculty affiliates for the 2025–26 academic year—its largest incoming cohort to date. Representing a broad range of disciplinary backgrounds, the new affiliates bring deep expertise in artificial intelligence (AI), data science, public policy, digital culture, healthcare, ethics, law, sustainability, and education.
This year’s new affiliates reflect SRI’s ongoing commitment to interdisciplinary research on the social dimensions of technology. Their work spans critical areas including AI governance and alignment, data justice, human-machine interaction, the digitalization of work, platform accountability, and sustainable innovation.
“This new group of faculty affiliates brings extraordinary energy and intellectual range to SRI’s research community,” said SRI Director David Lie. “Together, they reflect our continued focus on building a rigorous, diverse, and collaborative space to understand and shape the technological transformations affecting our world today.”
Get to know our new affiliates:
Mohammed Basheer is an assistant professor with the Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering. His research focuses on the planning and management of hydrology and water resource systems, including hydropower planning, the water-energy-food nexus, and coupled human-water systems. Using AI-enhanced simulation frameworks, his work supports sustainable infrastructure planning in the face of climate uncertainty. He is a recipient of numerous international honours, including the Humboldt Research Fellowship and editorial awards from Nature Communications and River Research and Applications.
Jordan Brensinger is a sociologist who studies the design and use of technologies for understanding people—and what those systems mean for society. He is an assistant professor, Department of Sociology; his work spans everything from digital ID infrastructures to neurotechnology, with a focus on building systems that help individuals, organizations, and societies thrive. Brensinger collaborates with various public and private stakeholders to support just data governance, and his research has won awards and funding from the American Sociological Association and the National Science Foundation.
Timothy Chan is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and holds a Canada Research Chair in Novel Optimization and Analytics in Health; he serves as U of T’s Associate Vice-President and Vice-Provost, Strategic Initiatives. His research in operations research, applied machine learning, and healthcare analytics has earned him numerous honours, including the 2024 President’s Teaching Award and multiple INFORMS prizes. He is a highly cited scholar with extensive leadership in academic publishing and institutional research programs.
A new appointment to the university and an assistant professor with the Faculty of Information, Huili Chen joins U of T from MIT’s Personal Robots Group, where her research explored affective computing and emotion-based human-robot interactions. With a background in computer science and psychology, she develops systems that enhance human-machine emotional engagement. Chen also brings a global perspective to her research, shaped by social impact work in China, Zambia, and Costa Rica.
An alumni of SRI’s graduate fellow program who recently completed his MD and PhD at U of T, Michael Colacci is an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine. His work investigates the clinical implementation of machine learning decision-support tools in internal medicine, aiming to integrate AI systems into care delivery in a way that improves patient outcomes and clinical workflows.
Hayane Dahmen is a legal and policy expert whose research examines the implications of AI for global competition law and governance. A former SRI postdoctoral fellow, she is now an assistant professor in public policy at the University of Cambridge. Her experience includes roles at the World Bank, The Alan Turing Institute, and the European Commission. She is the recipient of the Salje Medal for her Cambridge PhD and a contributor to the volume Artificial Intelligence and Competition Policy (2025).
Cross-appointed with the Institute for the Study of University Pedagogy, Rutwa Engineer’s work reimagines computer science education through the lens of epistemic diversity. Her research on computing and AI in education has been shared at major conferences including SIGCSE and AERA. As an assistant professor (teaching stream) with UTM’s Department of Mathematical and Computational Sciences, she teaches core computer science courses and mentors UTM’s Society for Algorithmic Modelling.
Rafael Grohmann is a scholar of platform studies and digital labour and an assistant professor in the Department of Arts, Culture and Media. He is founding editor of Platforms & Society, leader of the DigiLabour initiative, and a research associate at the University of Oxford. His research explores AI and work, cooperative platforms, and digital solidarity, with a particular emphasis on Latin America.
Seva Gunitsky, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science, studies how global dynamics—such as war, hegemony, and technological change—affect democratization and political reform. His research has been featured in top academic journals and public outlets like Foreign Affairs and The Washington Post, with recent work exploring the evolution of cyber resistance and statehood in the digital age.
With a background in AI and natural language processing, Brian Harrington now focuses on computer science education and undergraduate research engagement. He earned his doctorate at Oxford and held research positions in both academia and industry before joining UTSC, where he is a professor (teaching stream) in the Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences.
Safwat Hassan specializes in mobile software systems, continuous integration, and AI-assisted software engineering. He has authored over 30 publications in leading journals and conferences, including TOSEM and TSE, and his research bridges academic insight with a decade of software industry experience. He is currently an assistant professor with the Faculty of Information.
A Canada Research Chair in Geometry Processing, an assistant professor with the Departments of Computer Science and Mathematics, and a senior research scientist at Adobe Research, Alec Jacobson develops innovative machine learning techniques and interactive design tools for physics-based simulations. He leads development of libigl, an award-winning open-source library, and is the recipient of the 2020 ACM SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award.
Zhijing Jin is a rising leader in AI safety and large language model (LLM) research. Her work combines causal inference, multi-agent simulation, and moral reasoning in LLMs, with significant contributions to interpretability and robustness. Now an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science, Jin joins both U of T and the Vector Institute as a faculty member in fall 2025, having previously served as a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute.
Bowen Li is an assistant professor and GSK Chair in Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery at U of T’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, and an affiliate scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. He holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in RNA Vaccines and Therapeutics. His lab combines chemistry, high-throughput screening, and AI to design delivery systems for RNA therapeutics, including mRNA, circRNA, tRNA, and CRISPR. He has published over 60 papers in top journals, holds 10 patents, and has received multiple grants and awards, including in 2024 being named an Oxford-Harrington Rare Disease Scholar and receiving Gairdner and National Sanitarium Association early career awards.
A new appointment to U of T as an associate professor with the Faculty of Information, Evan Light is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work addresses technology policy, privacy, and digital surveillance. His research has informed national policy debates in Canada and extends to facial recognition, biometric regulation, and environmental tech. Light is also a practicing artist and translator with a record of international exhibitions and publications.
Often called “the father of wearable computing,” Steve Mann is a world-renowned inventor and researcher in the realm of computational photography and sousveillance studies. He developed HDR imaging, the EyeTap device, and the musical hydraulophone. His work is foundational to the field of Humanistic Intelligence, and he continues to bridge engineering, design, and the arts through public scholarship and entrepreneurial ventures. He is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Vice-Provost for Innovations in Undergraduate Education and professor with the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Susan McCahan is a recognized leader in engineering education research, and serves as chair of U of T’s AI Task Force. She has received the 3M National Teaching Fellowship and Engineers Canada Medal of Distinction, and her scholarship focuses on assessment systems and educational technologies that shape student learning at scale.
Evi Micha’s research in computational social choice and algorithmic fairness addresses questions of democratic governance and ethical AI. She explores how individual preferences can be aggregated into collective decisions in both civic and technological systems. Micha earned her PhD from U of T and is an alumni of SRI’s graduate fellow program. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Southern California.
Paula Rowland investigates the transformation of healthcare work in datafied and digitally mediated clinical environments. A former occupational therapist, her research draws on STS, sociology, and education to explore how reforms in health systems impact knowledge, identity, and learning. She is an assistant professor of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy.
Tim G. J. Rudner is an assistant professor in the Department of Statistical Sciences and a faculty member at the Vector Institute. He is also a Junior Research Fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, an Associate Member of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford, a Faculty Associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, and an AI Fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. His research interests span probabilistic machine learning, AI safety, and AI governance. Before joining U of T, he was an assistant professor and faculty fellow at New York University. Rudner holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Oxford, where he was a Qualcomm Innovation Fellow and a Rhodes Scholar.
An assistant professor with the Faculty of Law, legal philosopher and expert in AI governance, Nathalie Smuha is the author of Algorithmic Rule By Law (2024) and editor of The Cambridge Handbook on the Law, Ethics and Policy of AI (2025). She has advised the European Commission and Council of Europe and teaches law at Columbia and NYU. Smuha joins U of T’s Faculty of Law having previously served as an assistant professor at KU Leuven.
Sriram Subramanian’s work in multi-agent reinforcement learning explores cooperation, scalability, and policy alignment in AI systems. A former SRI and Vector postdoctoral fellow, he is an incoming Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Artificial Intelligence, and a mentor in the IBET PhD Project for equity in higher education. He is an assistant professor with the School of Computer Science at Carleton University.
Pascal Tyrrell is an accomplished data scientist and the director of data science at the University of Toronto's Department of Medical Imaging, within the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, where is an associate professor. He also holds appointments in the Institute of Medical Science, where he serves as Director of Equity, Diversity, Indigeneity, Inclusion, and Accessibility, and in the Department of Statistical Sciences. His research focuses on applying AI techniques to medical image analysis, driving improved health outcomes globally. Additionally, Tyrrell is a serial entrepreneur with expertise in computer software, medical devices, and agri-tech.
Weilai Yu develops next-generation energy technologies by integrating electrochemistry, material science, and AI-driven experimentation. A former postdoc at Stanford and Caltech-trained chemist, he is a Lindau Young Scientist and editorial board member for Materials Horizons. He is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry.
About SRI’s faculty affiliate program
The Schwartz Reisman Institute’s faculty affiliate program builds a dynamic, interdisciplinary community of scholars working at the intersection of technology and society. Open to University of Toronto continuing faculty at any career stage, the program offers opportunities to engage in seminars, research exchanges, and public scholarship. Affiliates benefit from support in amplifying their work and participate actively in Institute events and initiatives.
“Whether they’re working on AI ethics, digital labour, health systems, or sustainability, SRI faculty affiliates are united by a shared commitment to shaping a more equitable and humane future, in which advanced technologies benefit everyone,” said Lie.
Want to learn more?
· Explore the full SRI community of more than 100 faculty affiliates.
· Read our announcement of SRI’s 2025–26 graduate fellows.
· Read a recap of SRI’s Absolutely Interdisciplinary conference.
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