Hedayat (Heddy) Zarkoob
hzarkoob[at]sfu[dot]ca

I am a lecturer in the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University (SFU). In this role, I teach various AI-related courses for the School of Computing Science and for the Master of Big Data program.

My research interests lie at the intersection of AI and education, with a focus on using AI and technology to promote active learning practices in large-scale educational settings.

Before joining SFU, I was a postdoc in the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where I also did my PhD under the supervision of Prof. Kevin Leyton-Brown. Before joining UBC, I received my MSc in Computer Science under the supervision of Prof. Andrei Bulatov at SFU.

News

- I will be teaching CMPT 732: Big Data Lab 1 in the Master of Big Data program at SFU in Fall 2026.
- I will be joining the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University (SFU) as a lecturer in August 2026.
- The third seminar in the AI and Education seminar series will be given by Dongwook Yoon in the ICICS Building in Feburary 2026. For more information please check here.
- I will be chairing a session on "Improving Student Sucess" at SIGCSE 2025.
- The second seminar in the AI and Education seminar series will be given by Elisa Baniassad at the IKB Learning Centre in March 2025. For more information, please check here.
- The first seminar in the AI and Education seminar series will be given by Patrick P. Pennefather at IKB Learning Centre in Janurary 2025. For more information please check here.
- I was assigned to be one of the co-chairs of the AI and Education seminar series at UBC, a collaboration between CTLT and CAIDA.
- I will be chairing a session on "Reaching New Audiences" at SIGCSE 2024.
- We have designed and deployed Agora, an open-source application that facilitates online and in-class student participation. For more information about Agora, please check here.
- I was very lucky to be one of the AAAI 2021's Workflow Chairs. You can check our paper on the innovations and experiences in AAAI2021 and their detailed analysis here.

Teaching

- DSCI 563: Unsupervised Learning , MDS Program, UBC, Feburary 2026.
- DSCI 513: Databases and Data Retrieval, MDS Program, UBC, November 2025.
- DSCI 512: Algorithms and Data Structures, MDS Program, UBC, October 2024, 2025.
- DSCI 541: Privacy, Ethics, and Security, MDS Program, UBC, March 2025, 2026.
- DSCI 553: Statistical Inference and Computation II, MDS Program, UBC, Feburary 2025.
- DSCI 542: Communication and Argumentation, MDS Program, UBC, January 2025.
- CPSC 430: Computers and Society, CS department, UBC, Fall 2023, Winter 2024.

Educational Software Packages

- Agora: An open-source web-based application that facilitates online and in-class student participation with the goal of improving students' engagement and diversity. To learn more about Agora, please check here.

- Mechanical TA 2: An open-source web-based peer grading system that uses teaching assistants (TAs) for selective spot-checks, incentivizing high-quality grading. To learn more about Mechanical TA 2, please check here.

Publications and Preprints

Authentic Data Science Assessments in a Computer-Based Testing Environment - (Working paper)
H. Zarkoob, K. Burak, Z. Warham, F. Moosvi
[pdf]

Expanding the Horizons of Autograding: Innovative Questions at UBC - 2025
ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE TS 2025)
J. Niu, J. Wong, C. Lake, J. Rahardjo, H. Zarkoob, O. Ola, P. Belleville, K. Mochetti, M. Allen, F. Moosvi, S. Wolfman
[pdf]

AI-powered Methods for Academic Assessment: Overcoming Scalability Challenges in Large University Classrooms and Conference Review - 2024
UBC Library (PhD thesis)
[pdf]

Agora: Motivating and Measuring Engagement in Large-Class Discussions - 2024
ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE 2024)
H. Zarkoob, S. Nand, K. Leyton-Brown, G. Toti
[pdf]

Mechanical TA 2: Peer Grading With TA and Algorithmic Support - 2024
ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE TS 2024)
H. Zarkoob, K. Leyton-Brown
[pdf]

Matching Papers and Reviewers at Large Conferences - 2024
The Journal of Artificial Intelligence (AIJ 2024)
K. Leyton-Brown, Mausam, Y. Nandwani*, H. Zarkoob*, C. Cameron, N. Newman, D. Raghu
* Joint student lead authors
[pdf]

Better Peer Grading through Bayesian Inference - 2023
AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2023)
H. Zarkoob, G. d'Eon, L. Podina, K. Leyton-Brown
[pdf]

Mechanical TA 2: A System for Peer Grading with TA Support - 2021
(CoRR)
H. Zarkoob, F. Abdolhosseini, K. Leyton-Brown
[pdf]

Report-sensitive spot-checking in peer grading systems - 2020
Nineteenth International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems AAMAS 2020
(This article supersedes an AAMAS 2019 extended abstract with the same title)
H. Zarkoob, H. Fu, K. Leyton-Brown
[pdf]

Smarter Parking: Using AI to Identify Parking Inefficiencies in Vancouver - 2019
(CoRR)
D. Graham , S. K. Sarraf, T. Lundy, A. MohammadMehr, S. Uppal, T. Y. Lee, H. Zarkoob, S. D. Kominers, K. Leyton-Brown
[pdf]

Optimizing one-way car sharing systems - 2015
SFU Library (Masters thesis)
[pdf]