Dr. Afsoon Soudi is an Assistant Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University and the Associate Director of the Creative AI Hub at The Creative School. Prior to TMU, she led machine intelligence teams to develop an audience analytics platform and recommender systems enabling discoverability and personalization in digital media products. In addition to her academic experience, Dr. Soudi is a tech-based entrepreneur. As co-founder and VP of Research and Development of an award winning software company (which was later acquired), she led a multidisciplinary team of researchers and developers on technology commercialization and developing ML products for B2B applications.

Dr. Soudi holds multiple patents and has published numerous peer-reviewed papers in high-impact journals. Her current research interests intersect responsible AI and media analytics. She is committed to equity, diversity and inclusion by mentoring and empowering women and other underrecognized groups. As an educator, she brings that commitment to her research and teaching through inclusive curriculum and supervision, developing inclusive creators of the future.