Haruna Isah, PhD

Biography

Research Manager, Centre for Applied AI

Haruna Isah, PhD is the Research Manager for Sheridan's Centre for Applied AI, focusing his efforts on driving impactful applied AI research and industry partnerships in the development, deployment, and responsible adoption of artificial intelligence. He is an experienced researcher and innovation leader with over a decade of expertise spanning applied AI, cybersecurity, strategic research, and technology innovation.

His work bridges academia and industry, leading multidisciplinary collaborations with industry, public-sector organizations, and community stakeholders to translate AI concepts into validated solutions for real-world challenges. His research interests include agentic and semi-autonomous AI systems, responsible and explainable AI, human-in-the-loop AI, generative AI and large language models, computer vision, cybersecurity, and AI-enabled decision-support systems. His work also emphasizes AI lifecycle management, human oversight, accountability, privacy, and inclusive design to support the safe and trustworthy deployment of AI technologies.

Prior to joining Sheridan, Haruna served as Research Associate and Talent Development Manager at the Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity at the University of New Brunswick and as an IBM–SOSCIP Postdoctoral Fellow at Queen's University.

Haruna contributes actively to the broader research and innovation ecosystem. He has served on the Multidisciplinary Assessment Committee for the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) College Fund and the Full Application Review Committee for Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Technology Access Centre (TAC) grants. He also serves as a program committee member, panel member, reviewer, and judge for national and international AI research and technology commercialization initiatives.

Haruna holds a PhD in Computing and an MSc in Software Engineering from the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom.