Faculty, Staff & Postdoc
Maximilian Puelma Touzel
Research Associate
(Fall 2024)
Research scientist in human and machine social decision-making for social impact
Sophia Garrel
Project Manager
(Summer 2025)
Technology transfer for Infrared
Sitao Luan
Postdoc
(June 2025)
Work on Graph Learning, LLM Reasoning, AI4Science
Feel free to contact me for discussion and collaboration
Students
PhD
Aurélien Bück-Kaeffer
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2025)
Into RL, currently working on an accurate social media simulation using LLMs
Sneheel Sarangi
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2025)
Emma Kondrup
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany, Catherine Régis
(Winter 2026)
Online harms, applied graph machine learning and technology-facilitated gender-based violence.
Brian Yang
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2026)
Masters
Sebastian Sabry
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Summer 2025)
Johnny Dellas
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Summer 2026)
Jacob-Junqi Tian
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2026)
Works on projects related to NLP, LLM, and Reasoning
Liu Shiyan
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2026)
Shirley Zhao
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2026)
Intern
Andrew Lin
Hosted by:
Pratheeksha Nair, Reihaneh Rabbany
(Winter 2026)
Working on improving LLMs as Fact-Checkers
Islam Eldifrawi
Hosted by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Summer 2026)
Past Members
Faculty, Staff & Postdocs
Mark Ezema
AI Engineer
(Mar 2023)
Works on AI for combating human trafficking in Canada
→ Software Engineer, AI for Humanity @ Mila
Farimah Poursafaei
Data Scientist @ Mila
(Fall 2024)
Machine Learning on Temporal Graphs
PhD co-supervised with Zeljko Zilic (primary supervisor) from December 2020. Thesis: Anomaly detection in cryptocurrency networks and beyond.
→ Postdoctoral Fellow @ McGill → Model Evaluation Scientist @ BNP Paribas
Taylor Lynn Curtis
Software Developer
(September 30, 2024)
Works on AI Misinformation Mitigation
→ Policy Advisor, AI and Science, Office of Professor Yoshua Bengio
Alumni
PhD
Farimah Poursafaei
Advised by:
Zeljko Zilic, Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2017-Summer 2022)
Machine Learning on Temporal Graphs
PhD co-supervised with Zeljko Zilic (primary supervisor) from December 2020. Thesis: Anomaly detection in cryptocurrency networks and beyond.
→ Postdoctoral Fellow @ McGill → Model Evaluation Scientist @ BNP Paribas
Aarash Feizi
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany, Adriana Romero Soriano
(Fall 2019-Summer 2026)
Works on multi-modal self-supervised learning and applied machine learning techniques in CV and NLP for social good with real-world impacts.
Fast-tracked to PhD in May 2021. Thesis: On the Challenges of Applying Vision and Language Models in Real-World. FRQNT PhD Scholarship.
→ Senior Researcher @ Microsoft AI
Shenyang (Andy) Huang
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany, Guillaume Rabusseau
(Fall 2019)
Working temporal graph learning and graph learning applications for real world.
→ Postdoctoral Fellow @ Oxford → Senior ML Research Scientist @ LawZero
Pratheeksha Nair
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Summer 2020-Summer 2025)
AI for social good applications - fighting online organized crime; Weak Supervision and Graph Machine Learning
Thesis: Learning from Weak Supervision: Insights from Human Trafficking Detection. FRQNT PhD Scholarship.
→ Research Engineer II @ Borealis AI (RBC)
Zachary Yang
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Winter 2021)
Working on applied NLP for social good - toxicity, misinformation, polarization
Fast tracked from Masters to PhD
→ AI Researcher, Online Safety Team @ Ubisoft La Forge → Senior Applied Research Scientist, AI Safety Studio @ Mila
Kellin Pelrine
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2022)
AI Security, AI Agents. Cross-functional solutions on a foundation of technical research.
→ Research Scientist @ FAR.AI
Masters
Albert Orozco
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2019-Summer 2021)
Interested in all things related to social network interactions.
→ PhD @ Concordia University
Junhao Wang
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2019-Winter 2021)
Interested in graph mining and reinforcement learning
→ Microsoft
Xiaoye (Charlotte) Ding
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2019-Summer 2021)
Interested in graph representation learning and network science.
→ SDE II @ AWS
Jacob Danovitch
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2020-Summer 2023)
Interested in the intersection of natural language processing and network science, with a focus on social media.
→ Data & Applied Scientist II @ Microsoft
Elahe Kooshafar
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2022-Summer 2025)
Working on Graph Representation Learning and Applications, Graph Neural Networks, Deep Learning, and Network Science.
Thesis: Representation Integrity in Temporal Graph Learning Methods.
Sahar Omidi Shayegan
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany, Isar Nejadgholi @ NRC
(Fall 2022-Summer 2025)
Studies Social Networks through Graphs and Language Modeling
Thesis: Learning Political Ideologies in Ambiguous Contexts Using Language and Graph-Based Representations.
→ ML Scientist @ Veris AI
Soroush Omranpour
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany, Guillaume Rabusseau
(Fall 2022-Summer 2025)
Working on building scalable and efficient machine learning models for tensor-structured or highly complex and evolving data.
Thesis: Higher Order Transformers With Kronecker-Structured Attention.
→ Applied AI Scientist @ Amazfit
Vidya Sujaya
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2023-Summer 2026)
Jacob Chmura
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany, Nicolas Le Roux
(Fall 2024-Summer 2026)
→ AI Systems Engineer @ Figure AI
Shahrad Mohammadzadeh
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany, Doina Precup
(Fall 2024-Summer 2026)
LLMs, RL, and Graph Learning
Undergraduate
Heather Bosiljevac
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Summer 2019-Fall 2019)
→ Senior Advisor, Competitive Analytics @ Bell
Sacha Lévy
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2019-Summer 2023)
Applied ML for social good. I implement data pipelines. I am interested in artificial intelligence, computers and physics.
→ Chief Scientific Officer @ Theseus
Yifei Li
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Summer 2020)
Interested in data mining and NLP, worked on entity extraction in online escort ads.
→ Masters @ UBC
Jacob-Junqi Tian
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Summer 2022-Fall 2023)
Works on projects related to NLP, LLM, and Reasoning
→ Master
Hao Yu
Advised by:
Reihaneh Rabbany
(Fall 2022-Winter 2024)
Interested in LLMs, RAG and Data Mining. Worked on NER in online escort ads and LLMs in detecting misinformation.
→ Master (Thesis) @ McGill
Andrey Ambartsumov
Advised by:
Victor Livernoche, Reihaneh Rabbany
(Winter 2026)
Generative AI, Graph Learning, Deep Learning
Interns
Aurélien Bück-Kaeffer
Hosted by:
(Feb 2025)
Into RL, currently working on an accurate social media simulation using LLMs
→ PhD
Taimaa Kassab Bachi
Hosted by:
Victor Livernoche, Reihaneh Rabbany
(January 2026)