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Applied AI Institute

Steering committee

The AI2 Steering Committee ensures that our strategic objectives, governance, resource allocation, and partnerships remain aligned with the institute's mission, vision, and guiding principles — overseeing the decisions critical to advancing AI2's work.

Members represent each of Concordia’s faculties, ensuring the institute's interdisciplinary nature is reflected in its governance. 

Members

  • Lisa Kakinami
    • Full Professor, Mathematics and Statistics
    • Research Member, School of Health
    • Affiliate, Health, Kinesiology and Applied Physiology
    • Fellow, Science College

Lisa Kakinami is an epidemiologist, and Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Concordia University. Her research focuses on understanding the relationship between lifestyle factors, adiposity, and chronic diseases.

As a researcher teaching and using statistics, Lisa's interest is in how we can apply AI responsibly as a complementary tool, while maintaining full ownership of the process and understanding of the underlying methodology.

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    Rilla Khaled
    • Associate Professor, Design and Computation Arts
    • Associate Director of Technoculture, Art, and Games (TAG) Research Centre, - Not applicable –
    • Strategic Hire in Digital Media, Learning, and Games, - Not applicable –

Rilla Khaled is an Associate Professor of Computation Arts at Concordia University, and Co-Director of the Technoculture, Art and Games (TAG) Research Centre. Her work focuses on how playful media can improve daily life.

She uses Research through Design (RtD) approaches to explore boundaries for social and ethical uses of AI, enabling audiences to materially experience potential boundaries to reflect on what they would entail.

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    Leila Kosseim
    • Professor, Computer Science and Software Engineering

Leila Kosseim’s research focuses on Natural Language Processing (NLP), computational linguistics, and discourse analysis.

By transitioning theoretical AI models into real-world applications, her work advances Applied AI to address societal and health challenges. This includes developing systems to analyze and detect misinformation, evaluate vagueness in political discourse, and detect mental health indicators from social media texts.

Maggie Cheng’s research examines the organizational and ethical implications of artificial intelligence, with a focus on algorithmic management, fairness, and human agency in AI-assisted work.

She is particularly interested in how AI reshapes human judgment, decision-making, and accountability in organizational settings. Supported by SSHRC and FRQSC research grants, her work explores the responsible application of AI in organizational decision-making, work, and learning.

Wahab Hamou-Lhadj is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Concordia University and was an Affiliate Researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Caltech.

His work focuses on developing innovative AI solutions that leverage advances in AI and foundation models to address challenges in software operations and reliability. He has led collaborative research projects with partners including Ericsson, CAE, Ubisoft, and NASA JPL, helping organizations apply emerging AI capabilities to real-world challenges.

Core responsibilities

Direct strategy & governance

  • Set strategic objectives and priorities
  • Oversee governance structure and updates
  • Approve budget and resource allocation
  • Guide operational direction and outcomes

Advance research

  • Approve the creation of new Research Clusters, bringing together researchers around focused areas to generate the expertise that shapes AI2’s work. 
  • Appoint Research Cluster leadership 

Develop our network

  • Approve external partnerships and collaborations 
  • Develop and approve new institutional memberships 
  • Define benefits for internal and external members