From an early age, I was drawn to sciences. Choosing pre-engineering in high school felt like destiny. After a highly competitive examination process; in 2011 I was admitted to the BS Computer Science program at a prestigious public engineering institute — University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore.
During my studies, I gained hands-on experience and began my career as a Software Developer (Intern) in 2014. My journey grew from solving problems in large codebases; exploring/debugging/coding tens of thousands of lines of code and hundreds of SQL tables. However, the curiosity to learn more led me to pursue a Master’s degree in Computer Science at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), focusing on data science and machine learning. Imagine implementing neural networks and machine learning models without modern libraries! :p
After completing my Master’s thesis in 2017, my curiosity to advance Data Science transformed into an R&D passion.
In 2019, I joined the University of Klagenfurt, Austria, as a Senior Scientist at the Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity (AICS). Within the Information Systems Research Group, I investigated natural language generation (e.g., GPT, BERT, Transformers, RNNs, GNNs) and retrieval-based methods for the conversational recommendation problem, with a particular focus on their effectiveness in terms of quality and usability from a human-centric standpoint.
In 2023, this work led to my PhD project conclusion in Applied AI (ML/NLP/UX), with 10+ peer-reviewed publications. In essence, it was a transformative journey, where in addition to the persuit of becoming an independent researcher, and experiencing teaching at university, I explored how humans interact with multi-turn conversational agents for example, today's ChatGPT; and how technology can feel more natural, predictable, and human-intuitive.
Over the past decade, I’ve been fortunate to work across research labs, startups, and global enterprises in domains such as travel & insurance, media, auto finance, e-commerce, and enterprise digital/data platforms. From acquring scientific exposure to practical problem solving, I see myself as a scientific liaison between R&D, engineering, and design; eager to apply what I’ve refined over the years on a broader, practical scale, while learning from others, upscaling expertise, and creating impact.
My primary research interests lie at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Human-Computer Interaction (assistive technologies, human factors, UX).
Outside of work, I enjoy sightseeing, traveling, and exploring multi-cuisine food, in addition to trying out the best coffee in the town☕. Have something serious to discuss? do not hestitate to reach out.
Publications
You can also find my articles on my Google Scholar profile.
ChatGPT as a Conversational Recommender System: A User-Centric Analysis
Published in In Proceedings of the The 32nd ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization. Monday 1 - Thursday 4 July, 2024. Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy, 2024
Factors Influencing the Perceived Meaningfulness of System Responses in Conversational Recommendation
Published in IntRS’23: Joint Workshop on Interfaces and Human Decision Making for Recommender Systems, September 18, 2023, Singapore (hybrid event)., 2023
Effects of Human-curated Content on Diversity in PSM:ARD-M Dataset
Published in 1st Workshop on Learning and Evaluating Recommendations with Impressions (LERI) held in conjunction with the ACM International Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys 2023) in Singapore, September 18-23, 2023, 2023
INSPIRED2: An Improved Dataset for Sociable Conversational Recommendation
Published in 4th Workshop of Knowledge-aware and Conversational Recommender Systems (KaRS), colocated with RecSys '22, 2022
Revisiting Retrieval-based Approaches for Conversational Recommender Systems
Published in 12th Italian Information Retrieval Workshop (IIR '22), 2022
Towards Retrieval-based Conversational Recommendation
Published in Information Systems, Volume 109, Pages 14, 2022
INFACT: An Online Human Evaluation Framework for Conversational Recommendation
Published in 4th Workshop of Knowledge-aware and Conversational Recommender Systems (KaRS), colocated with RecSys '22, 2022
A Survey on Conversational Recommender Systems
Published in ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), Volume 54, Article No.: 105, pp 1–36, 2022
Generation-based vs. Retrieval-based Conversational Recommendation: A User-Centric Comparison
Published in 15th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys '21), 2021
Conversational recommendation based on end-to-end learning: How far are we?
Published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports, Volume 4, Pages 9, 2021
End-to-End Learning for Conversational Recommendation: A Long Way to Go?
Published in IntRS Workshop at ACM RecSys '20, 2020
ALAP: Accessible LaTeX Based Mathematical Document Authoring and Presentation
Published in Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '19), 2019
Assistive Debugging to Support Accessible Latex Based Document Authoring
Published in the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '18), 2018
Projects
Conversational Recommender Systems (CRS)
Overview Investigated natural-language-generation and retrieval-based methods for multi-turn conversational recommendation, with a human-centric focus on the quality and usability of system responses.
- Generation-based vs. Retrieval-based Conversational Recommendation: A User-Centric Comparison (RecSys '21)
- End-to-End Learning for Conversational Recommendation: A Long Way to Go? (IntRS @ RecSys '20)
ChatGPT as a Conversational Recommender System
Overview A user-centric analysis evaluating how effectively ChatGPT performs as a conversational recommender, examining recommendation quality and user perceptions.
- ChatGPT as a Conversational Recommender System: A User-centric Analysis (UMAP 2024)
INFACT — Online Human Evaluation Framework
Overview An online framework for reproducible human evaluation of conversational recommendation systems, enabling controlled multi-turn user studies.
- INFACT: An Online Human Evaluation Framework for Conversational Recommendation (KaRS @ RecSys '22)
Teaching
Data Structures and Algorithms
Undergraduate course, University of Klagenfurt · 2021 · Klagenfurt, Austria
Course instructor, co-ordinator.
Introduction to Computer Science
Undergraduate course, University of Klagenfurt · 2020-2023 · Klagenfurt, Austria
Instructor, course organizer, coordinator.
Software Reuse
Graduate course, Department of Computer Science, LUMS · 2017 · Lahore, Pakistan
Teaching Assistant.
Software Project Management
Graduate course, Department of Computer Science, LUMS · 2017 · Lahore, Pakistan
Teaching Assistant.
Services
Invited Reviewer
- Journal of Intelligent Information Systems (JIIS), 2026
- Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology, 2026
- Journal of Entropy, MDPI, 2024, 2025, 2026
- Journal of Evolving Systems (EVOS), Springer, Nature, 2024, 2025, 2026
- ACM Transactions on Recommender Systems (TORS), 2023
- Journal of Human-computer Interaction (HCI), 2023
- Journal of User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction (UMUAI), 2023
- International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI ‘23), 2023
- Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘23), 2023
- Journal of Natural Language Engineering, 2022
- Journal of Artificial Intelligence Review, 2022
Program Committee Member
- Program committee member for CIKM ‘26, Rome, Italy (2026)
- Program committee member at 2ICML’22 (International Conference on Intelligent Computing and Machine Learning) held in Qingdao, China, from the 16th to 18th of December 2022. (2022)
Conference Organization
- Co-leader for CHI Global Plaza sessions at CHI ‘23 (2023)
- SV at 16th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems Seattle, WA, USA, 18th-23rd September 2022. (2022)
Mentoring & Student Collaboration
- 2 students — University of Klagenfurt (6 months)
- 2 students — University of Klagenfurt (1 month)
- 2 students / MSc thesis — Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) (1 year)
- 1 student / MSc thesis — University of Applied Sciences Bonn, Germany (1 year)
- 1 collaboration with doctoral thesis student — Mainz University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Professional Recognition
- 2024 Best Paper nominee mention at UMAP '24
- 2019 Best Researcher Award by HEC Pakistan for delivering an open-source software for visually impaired people
- 2015 NETSOL Soldier Award for showing the best discipline in trainings
- 2015–2017 Selected for the LUMS Financial Support Program for MSc studies
- 2012 Selected as a top student for the Youth Development Internship (YDC) program by the Chief Minister's Office, Punjab, Pakistan
- 2011–2015 PEEF Scholarship for BSc studies, awarded for being a top performer in high-school studies
Talks
- Building a Successful Career in Europe (2026)
- Factors Influencing the Perceived Meaningfulness of System Responses in Conversational Recommendation — IntRS’23: Joint Workshop on Interfaces and Human Decision Making for Recommender Systems, September 18, 2023, Singapore., Austria (remote) (2023)
- Advances in Conversational Recommendation — Doctoral Defense, University of Klagenfurt, Austria (2023)
- INSPIRED2: An Improved Dataset for Sociable Conversational Recommendation — 4th Workshop of Knowledge-aware and Conversational Recommender Systems (KaRS '22), Seattle, USA (2022)
- INFACT: An Online Human Evaluation Framework for Conversational Recommendation — 4th Workshop of Knowledge-aware and Conversational Recommender Systems (KaRS '22), Seattle, USA (2022)
- Revisiting Retrieval-based Approaches for Conversational Recommender Systems — 12th Italian Information Retrieval Workshop (IIR '22), Milan, Italy (2022)
- Generation-based vs. Retrieval-based Conversational Recommendation: A User-Centric Comparison — 15th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys '21), Amsterdam, Netherland (2021)
- End-to-End Learning for Conversational Recommendation: A Long Way to Go? — IntRS Workshop colocated with RecSys 2020, IntRS, Online (2020)
- Assistive Debugging to Support Accessible Latex Based Document Authoring — Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan (2017)