Formal Biography
Amir-massoud Farahmand is an assistant professor at the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto since 2019. He was a research scientist and CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute in Toronto between 2018–2024, and principal research scientist at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories in Cambridge, USA between 2014-2018. He received his PhD from the University of Alberta in 2011, followed by postdoctoral fellowships at McGill University (2011–2014) and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) (2014).
Amir-massoud’s research vision is to understand the computational and statistical mechanisms required to design efficient AI agents that interact with their environment and adaptively improve their long-term performance. He has experience in developing RL and ML methods to solve industrially-motivated problems.
Amir-massoud has extensively published in top and selective venues in machine learning. He has served as a member of editorial board of Machine Learning Journal and Transactions on Machine Learning Research, senior program committee of flagship conferences in ML, and has won many best reviewer awards.
See also: CV
Academic/Professional Background
- Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, 2019–present (2019–2024 as status-only; 2024 Feb–present as Contractually Limited Term Appointment)
- Assistant Professor (cross-appointment) at the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, 2019–present.
- Research Scientist, Faculty Member and CIFAR AI Chair, Vector Institute, 2018–2024.
- Principal Research Scientist, Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL), 2014–2018.
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Carnegie Mellon University (RI) (Working with J. Andrew Bagnell), 2014
- Postdoctoral Fellow, McGill University (SCS) (Working with Doina Precup), 2011-2014
- PhD in CS from the University of Alberta (Working with Csaba Szepesvári and Martin Jägersand), 2005–2011.
- MS in EE from the University of Tehran (Working with Majid Nili Ahmadabadi, Babak N. Araabi, and Caro Lucas), 2002–2005.
- BS in EE from K.N. Toosi University of Technology (Working with Mohammad Sadegh Abrishamian), 1998–2002.