Keynote Discussion with Mark Daley, Pamela Robinson and Sean Kheraj

Learn more about CELT and the Conference at: https://tinyurl.com/3rr4r65d
Follow us on LinkedIn:   / celt-tmu  

Following Mark Daley’s Keynote at the 2025 Learning and Teaching Conference, he sat down with Pamela Robinson and Sean Kheraj of Toronto Metropolitan University to reflect and deepen the discussion around Artificial Intelligence in higher education.

Watch Mark Daley’s Keynote at    • Keynote -  8 Billion Geniuses: Life in a P...  

About Mark Daley, Chief AI Officer at Western University and a Professor in the Department of Computer Science

Mark is the Chief AI Officer at Western University and a Professor in the Department of Computer Science with cross-appointments in five other departments, The Rotman Institute of Philosophy, and The Western Institute for Neuroscience. He is also a faculty affiliate of Toronto's Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

Mark was named in the Maclean's magazine "Power List 2024" of the top 100 Canadians shaping the country and in Constellation Research's AI150, a list of top 150 top global executives leading AI transformation efforts.

In October 2024, Mark was appointed the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Scholar in Residence in Artificial Intelligence.

Mark has previously served as the Vice-President (Research) at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), and Chief Digital Information Officer, Special Advisor to the President, and Associate Vice-President (Research) at Western.

Mark is the past chair of Compute Ontario and serves on a number of other boards.

About Pamela Robinson, Professor and Director, Civic Sandbox, School of Urban and Regional Planning, Toronto Metropolitan University

Dr. Pamela Robinson MCIP RPP is a professor at the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Toronto Metropolitan University and is interim academic director at city building TMU. Throughout her career as a planner her research and practice have focused on complex, emergent challenges that Canadian communities face. Her research and practice have focused on complex, emergent challenges that Canadian communities face. Pamela began with a focus on cities and climate change and now focuses more recently on how new technologies are impacting how we plan and design communities. Her current research asks: who is planning the Canadian smart city? In 2020 Pamela received the inaugural Canadian Institute of Planners President’s Award: Academic. She is an advisor on the Toronto Public Library’s Innovation Council and serves on the Board of Directors for the Metcalf Foundation. Pamela writes for Spacing Magazine and recently published a co-edited book The Future of Open Data (2022).

Sean Kheraj, Vice-Provost, Academic, Associate Professor of Canadian and Environmental History, Toronto Metropolitan University

Sean is an accomplished academic leader who joined TMU in January 2023 from York University where he served as the vice-dean and associate dean, Programs of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies. He is also an associate professor of Canadian and environmental history in the Department of History at TMU.

As vice-dean at York, Sean oversaw curriculum development and quality assurance, as well as experiential learning, enrolment management, and undergraduate recruitment in the largest arts and professional studies faculty in Canada.

An award-winning author and researcher, Sean’s work examines histories of parks, animals, cities, and energy in modern Canada. His book, Inventing Stanley Park: An Environmental History, earned the CLIO Prize for best book in B.C. history from the Canadian Historical Association and was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. He has also been published in Environmental History, Canadian Historical Review, and Urban History Review.

As director of the Network in Canadian History and Environment, Sean also hosts and produces Nature's Past: Canadian Environmental History Podcast.

He holds a PhD and master of arts in history from York and a bachelor of arts (Hons) in history from the University of British Columbia.