**This event was rescheduled as a result of the snow closure on Feb. 12**

Please join us for our next Brown Bag speaker event of the semester on Wednesday, March 19, 3:30pm at LRW 4001. Dr. Hamidreza Mahyar will present a paper titled “AI Transformation: Bridging Research and Community Impact.”

Dr. Hamidreza Mahyar is an assistant professor at the W Booth School of Engineering and Practice and Technology at McMaster where he specialises in machine learning, natural language processing, and graph neural networks. He completed his Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran and held postdoctoral fellowships at Vienna University of Technology and Boston University.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming applied linguistics by addressing societal challenges and driving community impact. In this talk, Dr. Hamidreza Mahyar will share insights from his 20 years in AI, highlighting projects like developing generative models for drug discovery, building a recommendation engine for a mental health app, and enabling AI-powered tools for language preservation in Indigenous and minority communities.

Using case studies from collaborations with organizations like BASF and Infineon Technologies, he will demonstrate how interdisciplinary research can foster ethical AI deployment, bridge global research efforts, and create practical societal benefits. This talk will also explore strategies for engaging trainees in impactful projects, inspiring the next generation to use AI as a catalyst for meaningful change.