Dr. Morteza Zihayat
“I'm working to democratize artificial intelligence technologies for the betterment of people.“
Morteza Zihayat works at the intersection of decentralization and democratization of artificial intelligence (AI). Named the Canada Research Chair in Human-Centred AI in 2025, Zihayat is a leading expert in developing AI models and information retrieval systems that are ethical, fair, and transparent. To design AI systems that genuinely prioritize human values, he focuses on integrating insights from data-driven methods with principles of fairness and accountability. Zihayat’s current research focuses on developing debiasing AI algorithms and tools using blockchain technology, data management, and machine learning.
Before joining the Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science at Toronto Metropolitan University, Zihayat was an associate professor at the university’s Ted Rogers School of Management, where he explored the application layer of AI through industry collaborations. Over his career, he has partnered with the Toronto Transit Commission, The Globe and Mail, AT&T, and currently serves as a Research Faculty Fellow at IBM’s Centre for Advanced Studies.
From public transit and digital media to enterprise systems and real estate, his cross-sector collaborations are unified by a central goal: advancing human-centered AI that delivers transparency, fairness, and tangible societal benefit.
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Highlights
Named Canada Research Chair in Human-Centred AI.
Named the CRC in Human-Centred AI (Tier II) in 2025, Zihayat is investigating how to develop and scale language learning models and information retrieval systems that are informed by fairness, transparency, and robustness.
Co-authored “Understanding and Mitigating Gender Bias in Information Retrieval Systems.”
Zihayat and co-authors published the book in 2025 to document the sources of stereotypical biases in information retrieval systems and propose data-driven debiasing methods to guide researchers.
Current Research Faculty Fellow at the IBM Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS).
Zihayat bridges research and industry applications by supporting big data research at IBM’s CAS since 2014, drawing on his roots in computer science.
Additional Info
| Publication Type | Authors | Year | Title | Published In | Additional Notes |
| Books | Sh. Seyedsalehi*, A. Bigdeli*, N. Arabzadeh*, B. AlMousawi*, Z. Marshall, M. Zihayat, E. Bagheri | 2025 | Understanding and Mitigating Gender Bias in Information Retrieval Systems | Foundations and Trends® in Information Retrieval, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 191–364 | DOI (external link) |
| Journal Articles | R. Etemadi*, M. Zihayat, K. Feng, J. Adelman, F. Zarrinkalam, E. Bagheri | 2025 | Jointly Learning Content-Network Representations for Collaborative Expert Discovery | Machine Learning Journal (MLJ) | |
| Journal Articles | S. Salamat*, N. Arabzadeh*, Sh. Seyedsalehi*, A. Bigdeli*, M. Zihayat, E. Bagheri | 2025 | A Contrastive Neural Disentanglement Approach for Query Performance Prediction | Machine Learning Journal (MLJ) | |
| Journal Articles | Sh. Seyedsalehi*, S. Salamat*, N. Arabzadeh*, S. Ebrahimi*, M. Zihayat, E. Bagheri | 2024 | Gender Disentangled Representation Learning in Neural Rankers | Machine Learning Journal (MLJ) | |
| Journal Articles | X. Yang, A. Joukova, M. Zihayat, A. Ayanso | 2022 | Social Influence-based Contrast Language Analysis Framework for Clinical Decision Support Systems | Decision Support Systems (DSS) | |
| Journal Articles | H. Davoudi, Z. Rashidi, M. Zihayat, A. An, Gordon Edall | 2020 | Paywall Policy Learning in Digital News Media | IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE) | |
| Journal Articles | A. Khan, L. Golab, M. Kargar, J. Szlichta, M. Zihayat | 2020 | Compact Group Discovery in Attributed Graphs and Social Networks | Information Processing & Management | |
| Journal Articles | M. Kargar, L. Golab, D. Srivastava, J. Szlichta, M. Zihayat | 2020 | Effective Keyword Search over Weighted Graphs | IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE) | |
| Conference Proceedings | Seyedsalehi, S., Son Le, H., Zihayat, M., Bagheri, E. | 2025 | Bias-Aware Curriculum Sampling For Fair Ranking | ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval | |
| Conference Proceedings | Razavi, A., Soltangheis, M., Arabzadeh, N., Salamat, S., Zihayat, M., Bagheri, E. | 2025 | Benchmarking Prompt Sensitivity in Large Language Models | European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR) | |
| Conference Proceedings | Hosseini, M., Arabzadeh, N., Zihayat, M., Bagheri, E. | 2024 | Enhanced Retrieval Effectiveness through Selective Query Generation | ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM 2024) | |
| Conference Proceedings | Etemadi, R.*, Zihayat, M., Feng, K., Adelman, J., Zarrinkalam, F., Bagheri, E. | 2024 | It Takes a Team to Triumph: Collaborative Expert Finding in Community QA Networks | SIGIR Asia Pacific (SIGIR-AP) | |
| Conference Proceedings | Salamat, S., Arabzadeh, N., Seyedsalehi, S., Bigdeli, A., Zihayat, M., Bagheri, E. | 2023 | Neural Disentanglement of Query Difficulty and Semantics | Proceedings of the 32nd ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM) | |
| Conference Proceedings | Bigdeli, A., Arabzadeh, N., Seyedsalehi, Sh., Zihayat, M., Bagheri, E. | 2023 | Understanding and Mitigating Gender Bias in Information Retrieval Systems | European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR) | |
| Conference Proceedings | Arabzadeh, N., Bigdeli, A., Zihayat, M., Bagheri, E. | 2021 | Query Performance Prediction through Retrieval Coherency | European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR) | Top-tier conference in Information Retrieval |
| Conference Proceedings | Kargar, M., Golab, L., Srivastava, D., Szlichta, J., Zihayat, M. | 2021 | Effective Keyword Search in Weighted Graphs | IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE) | Top-tier conference in data management |
| Conference Proceedings | Bigdeli, A., Arabzadeh, N., Zihayat, M., Bagheri, E. | 2021 | Exploring Gender Biases in Information Retrieval Relevance Judgement Datasets | European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR) | Top-tier conference in Information Retrieval |
| Conference Proceedings | Kargar, M., Zihayat, M., Szlichta, J. | 2019 | Mining and Exploration of Attributed Graphs: Theory and Applications | 29th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering (CASCON) | |
| Conference Proceedings | Davoudi, H., An, A., Zihayat, M., Edall, G. | 2018 | Adaptive Paywall Mechanism for Digital News Media | ACM SIGKDD | Ranked 1st in Data Mining conference |
| Award/Recognition | Year | |
| Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Human-Centered AI | 2024 | |
| Dean’s Outstanding Scholarly, Research, and Creative (SRC) Activity Award | 2023 | |
| TRSM Outstanding Research Recognition (10-time recipient) | 2019–2024 | |
| Best Short Paper Award – European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR) | 2023 | |
| Annual TRSM Research Recognition Award | 2022 | |
| IBM CAS Faculty Fellow | 2021 | |
| Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Award – York University | 2016 |
Education
Year |
University |
Degree |
2016 |
York University |
PhD |
2011 |
University of Tehran |
MSc |
2009 |
University of Isfahan |
BSc |