The AI for Justice Research Cluster at the Centre for Feminist Research (CFR) brings together scholars, students, community organizers, technologists, and artists to rethink artificial intelligence from the ground up. Rather than treating bias as a technical problem to be fixed inside models, the cluster starts from the insight that AI systems are shaped by social, political, and historical power relations, including colonialism, racism, ableism, sexism, and class inequality.
The cluster centres justice, liberation, and accountability as the foundations of AI design and governance. We treat AI not as a neutral tool, but as a site where struggles over extraction, data sovereignty, care, and collective futures are actively contested. Working in conversation with the Virtual Collaboratory on AI and Justice, the cluster creates a feminist, interdisciplinary space to interrogate how AI reproduces harm in domains such as health, disability, labour, and migration — and to imagine alternatives rooted in community knowledge, accessibility, and social transformation. Justice is not an afterthought; it is the starting point for how we think about data, models, infrastructures, and institutions.
Objectives of the AI for Justice Research Cluster
- Create an interdisciplinary, feminist space for collaborative research and mutual learning on AI and justice.
- Build Intellectual, Ethical and Political Foundations for Justice-Oriented AI
- Advance Community-Grounded Approaches to AI Design and Evaluation
- Critique and Transform AI Infrastructures Beyond Technical “Fixes”
- Support Interdisciplinary and Inter-institutional Collaboration
- Foster Research on AI, Health Equity, Disability and Accessibility
- Train and Mentor Emerging Scholars in Justice-Focused AI
- Mobilize Knowledge Through Public Engagement and Open Resources
Profile: https://health.yorku.ca/health-profiles/index.php?dept=&mid=981753
Profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6VcJPOEAAAAJ&hl=en
Elham Dolatabadi, Assistant Professor · Faculty of Health, York University
Profile: https://www.elhamdolatabadi.com/
Laleh Seyyed-Kalantari, Assistant Professor, Lassonde School of Engineering, York University
Profile: https://lassonde.yorku.ca/users/lskalantari
Yahya El-Lahib, Associate Professor, Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary
Profile: https://profiles.ucalgary.ca/yahya-el-lahib
Elizabeth Thompson, Professor, Department of History, University of Virginia
Profile: https://www.elizabethfthompson.org/
Michael Sherbert, Postdoctoral Fellow, Queen's University
Profile: https://www.queensu.ca/grad-postdoc/research/research-spotlights/dr-michael-g-sherbert
Christopher Dietzel, Centre for Feminist Research, York University
Profile:
Mehdi Adda, Professor, Department of Mathematics, Université du Québec à Rimouski
Profile: https://www.uqar.ca/professeurs/adda-mehdi/
Melanie Baljko, Associate Professor, Lassonde School of Engineering, York University
Profile: https://lassonde.yorku.ca/users/mb
Andre Kushniruk, Professor, School of Health Information Science, University of Victoria
Profile: https://www.uvic.ca/health/hinf/faculty-staff/faculty/kushniruk-andre.php
Elizabeth Borycki, Professor, School of Health Information Science, University of Victoria
Profile: https://www.uvic.ca/health/hinf/faculty-staff/faculty/elizabeth.php
Anoop George, Associate Professor, Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Palakkad, India
Profile: https://iitpkd.ac.in/people/anoop
Sonia D'Angelo, Instructor, Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University
Profile: https://students.wlu.ca/programs/arts/sociology/faculty-and-staff.html
Janise Peters, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto
Profile: https://ihpme.utoronto.ca/faculty-profile/janise-peters/
Maimuna Khan, Sessional Instructor, School of Social Work, University of Calgary
Profile: https://www.care-ai-lab.ca/maimuna-khan.html
Amanie Issa, PhD Researcher, Irish Centre for Human Rights (ICHR), Centre for Disability Law and Policy (CDLP), University of Galway
Profile: https://www.ihrec.ie/member-boards/amanie-issa
Prateeksha Pathak, PhD Candidate, Department of Geography, York University
Profile: https://www.yorku.ca/research/ycar/associate/prateeksha-pathak/
Fouâd Oveisy, PhD Student, Department of Politics, York University
Profile: https://www.fouadoveisy.com/
Gabriel Schaffzin, School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design, York University
Profile: https://ampd.yorku.ca/people/gabriel-schaffzin/
Ryan Collis, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Education, York University
Profile: https://yorku.academia.edu/RyanCollis
Kathleen Cherrington, PhD Student, Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies, York University
Profile: https://www.yorku.ca/laps/en/teaching-assistant/kathleen-cherrington/