Fattane Zarrinkalam, University of Guelph

Research

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)Information Retrieval Natural Language Processing Recommender System Semantic Web Social Media Mining User Modeling

Latest papers

Exploring Reddit Discourse and Information Needs Surrounding Extreme Heat: Topic, Sentiment, and Engagement Analysis.
Journal of medical Internet research · 2026
Exploring unanswerability in machine reading comprehension: approaches, benchmarks, and open challenges.
Artificial intelligence review · 2026

All 2 publications

Latest funding

Unlocking security insights through log analysis in LLM-powered applications
NSERC · 2025 · Principal investigator
$50,000
Semantics-aware Post-hoc Explainability on Social Recommender Systems
NSERC · 2022 · Principal investigator
$87,000
Semantics-aware Post-hoc Explainability on Social Recommender Systems
NSERC · 2022 · Principal investigator
$12,500

All 3 grants and awards

2 publications.

01

Exploring Reddit Discourse and Information Needs Surrounding Extreme Heat: Topic, Sentiment, and Engagement Analysis.

MacKay M, Zamani Alavijeh S, Gosselin S, Zarrinkalam F, McWhirter JE

Journal of medical Internet research2026

DOI: 10.2196/82426 PMID: 41740132

02

Exploring unanswerability in machine reading comprehension: approaches, benchmarks, and open challenges.

Moradisani H, Zarrinkalam F, Noorian Z, Ensan F

Artificial intelligence review2026

DOI: 10.1007/s10462-025-11421-5 PMID: 41312427

Unlocking security insights through log analysis in LLM-powered applications

Principal investigatorNSERC2025Mitacs Accelerate

Principal investigators: Zarrinkalam, Fattane

Keywords: Information, computer and communication technologies; Information systems and technology

$50,000

Semantics-aware Post-hoc Explainability on Social Recommender Systems

Principal investigatorNSERC2022Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Principal investigators: Zarrinkalam, Fattane

Keywords: social media mining; explainable artificial intelligence (xai); information retrieval; semantic web; user modeling; recommender system; natural language processing

$87,000

Semantics-aware Post-hoc Explainability on Social Recommender Systems

Principal investigatorNSERC2022Discovery Launch Supplement

Principal investigators: Zarrinkalam, Fattane

$12,500

From CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC funding decisions: CIHR since 2008, NSERC since 1991 and SSHRC since 1998, including their latest published competition results.

Frequent collaborators

Faezeh Ensan

Department of Electrical,Computer, and Biomedical Engineering

1 shared papers, latest 2026

Write to this professor

A short, specific email works best. This draft uses one of their recent papers; replace the parts in brackets with your own details before sending.

Applying for

Paper to mentionMention their NSERC grant from 2025

Subject: Prospective PhD student: Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) Dear Professor Zarrinkalam, My name is [your name], and I am a [your current degree or role] at [your institution]. I am applying for a PhD position starting in [term and year]. I read your paper "Exploring Reddit Discourse and Information Needs Surrounding Extreme Heat: Topic, Sentiment, and Engagement Analysis." (2026), and it connects closely to my own work on [your research topic]. [One or two sentences on what you did and what you learned.] I also saw your NSERC-funded project "Unlocking security insights through log analysis in LLM-powered applications" (2025), and I would be glad to contribute to work in that direction. Are you accepting new PhD students for [term and year]? I have attached my CV and transcripts, and I would be glad to talk at a time that suits you. Thank you for your time. Kind regards, [your name]