Hedayat Zarkoob

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

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

Before joining SFU, I spent two years as a postdoc in the Master of Data Science (MDS) program at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where I taught core computer and data science courses and supervised capstone projects.

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.

Education

Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of British Columbia (UBC), 2024
- Supervisor: Prof. Kevin Leyton-Brown
M.Sc. in Computer Science, Simon Fraser University (SFU), 2015
- Supervisor: Prof. Andrei Bulatov

News

January 2027: I will be teaching CMPT 311: Intro to AI for non-cs majors and CMPT 353: Computational Data Science.
September 2026: I am teaching CMPT 732: Big Data Lab 1 in SFU's Master of Big Data program.
August 2026: I joined the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University (SFU) as a Lecturer.
February 2026: The third seminar in the AI and Education Seminar Series will feature Dongwook Yoon at the ICICS Building (more details).
March 2025: The second seminar in the AI and Education Seminar Series featured Elisa Baniassad at the IKB Learning Centre (more details).
February 2025: I chaired a session on Improving Student Success at SIGCSE 2025.
January 2025: The first seminar in the AI and Education Seminar Series featured Patrick P. Pennefather at the IKB Learning Centre (more details).
2025: I was appointed as one of the co-chairs of the AI and Education Seminar Series at UBC, a collaboration between CTLT and CAIDA.
March 2024: I chaired a session on Reaching New Audiences at SIGCSE 2024.
2024: We designed and deployed Agora, an open-source application that facilitates student participation both online and in the classroom (read more).
2021: I served as one of the AAAI 2021 Workflow Chairs. Our paper on the conference's innovations and experiences, including a detailed analysis, is available here.

Courses Taught

Course	Program / Department	Date
DSCI 563: Unsupervised Learning	MDS Program, UBC	February 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	February 2025
DSCI 542: Communication and Argumentation	MDS Program, UBC	January 2025
CPSC 430: Computers and Society	CS Department, UBC	Fall 2023, Winter 2024

Capstone Projects Supervised

Project Title	Industry Partner	Date	Number of Students
Data-Driven Generation of Digital Ad Creatives	ResponsiveAds	May 2026	4
Image Analysis of Park Infrastructure	BC Parks	May 2026	4
Grounded AI for Road Maintenance Decisions: Evaluating Retrieval Quality and Failure Modes	PavePal Technologies Inc.	May 2026	4
Machine Learning Classification of APIs in Code Repositories	TeejLab	May 2026	4
AI-Driven Wildfire Prediction and Data Integration Platform	Bayes Studio Inc.	May 2025	4
AutoML CI/CD/CT: Continuous Training and Deployment Pipeline	Bayes Studio Inc.	May 2025	4
Forecasting Bitcoin Transaction Fees	Trilemma Foundation	May 2025	4
Quant AI-Powered IP Valuation	ViRA360	May 2025	4

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

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]