PhD Student · University of Calgary

Lily
Dey

Machine Learning Researcher & AI Ethics Advocate

Developing scalable, interpretable, and trust-aware AI systems. Bridging academia and industry through ethical, human-centric machine intelligence grounded in over a decade of R&D experience.

11+
Publications
10+
Years R&D
5
Awards
4
Degrees
Lily Dey
ML Researcher · UCalgary
Background

About Me

I am a PhD student in Computer Science at the University of Calgary, working on scalable and interpretable trust-aware modeling for user-generated online content. My research spans machine learning, NLP, and responsible AI.

With over a decade of industry experience across fintech, enterprise software, and AI research, I bring a rare combination of theoretical depth and practical engineering to complex problems. I transitioned from leading software teams at Midland Bank to cutting-edge ML research — a journey that has shaped my commitment to building technology that genuinely serves people.

I am passionate about AI transparency, ethical data practices, and accessible research. As a Teaching Assistant for courses in security and database systems, I work to instill responsible AI thinking in the next generation of CS students.

Research Focus

Trust-aware modeling, deceptive content detection, LLM-driven opinion mining, trustworthy AI

Current Role

Graduate Research & Teaching Assistant — TA for CPSC 329 & CPSC 471 at University of Calgary

Impact Areas

Public health trust, parliamentary NLP, AI in education, financial technology

Location

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Scholarship

Selected Publications

2025

An Intelligent Framework for Deceptive Review Detection Using Advanced Trust Vector Modeling

A novel framework leveraging trust vectors for detecting fake and deceptive reviews in online platforms.

PST 2025 — Privacy, Security and Trust Conference
2025

Exploring Public Trust through LLM-Driven Opinion Mining

Applying large language models to mine and analyze public trust signals from social and political discourse.

CISIM 2025 — Springer Nature Switzerland
2025 · In Review

A Comparative Study of ML and Deep Learning for News Classification

Benchmarking classical ML against deep neural architectures on news categorization tasks.

International Journal of Digital Human
2024

Enhancing Brain Tumor Diagnosis through Adaptive Feature Aggregation-Based Transfer Learning

Adaptive transfer learning pipeline for improving clinical accuracy in brain tumor classification from MRI.

IEEE ICIEA 2024
2024

Trustworthy and Responsible AI for Human-Centric Autonomous Decision-Making Systems

Framework addressing transparency, fairness, and accountability in autonomous AI systems.

arXiv:2408.15550
2024

Trustworthy, Ethical, and Explainable Computer Vision in Online Social Media

Comprehensive survey of XAI and ethical frameworks applied to computer vision in social media contexts.

Global Perspectives on Computer Vision in Cybersecurity
Career

Experience

2023 — Present
Graduate Research & Teaching Assistant
University of Calgary
  • TA for CPSC 329 (Information Security & Privacy) and CPSC 471 (Database Management Systems)
  • Developing LLM-driven framework analyzing Canadian public trust in health institutions
  • Invited speaker, Emerging Educators Speaker Series (June 2026)
Jan–Dec 2024
Research Intern
University of Calgary — Transdisciplinary Health Research
  • Transdisciplinary project with UCalgary, AHS, One Child Every Child & Pluralism Calgary
  • Data analytics, web scraping, sentiment analysis, keyword modeling, and LLM development
2017 — 2023
First Assistant Vice President
Midland Bank Limited, Bangladesh
  • Core R&D team member; led design of enterprise financial software solutions
  • Supervised cross-functional teams of 15 across full SDLC
  • Built Midland Bank CMS, Cash Management System, and Digital Account Opening platform
2016 — 2017
Lead Software Engineer
BJIT Limited · Valmet R&D (Finland)
  • Large-scale application development and stakeholder presentations
  • Industrial R&D on decision-based information mapping for dynamic engineering drawings
2012 — 2016
Lead Programmer
ASD Bangladesh · Standard Chartered · Premier Bank
  • Coordinated development team of 20 on corporate client projects
  • Delivered systems for Standard Chartered, Premier Bank, and Habib Bank
Expertise

Skills & Technologies

ML & AI

Machine LearningDeep LearningLLMsNLPTransfer LearningSentiment AnalysisTrust Modeling

Languages & Frameworks

PythonC#ASP.NETSQLMATLABWEB API

Data & Tools

Web ScrapingData AnalyticsVisualizationSQL ServerGit

Research

XAIEthical AIZero-shot ClassificationAcademic WritingConference Presenting
Recognition

Awards & Honours

Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship (AGES)
University of Calgary · 2026
International Graduate Tuition Award
University of Calgary · 2026–2029
International Graduate Recruitment Award
University of Calgary · 2026
International Graduate Tuition Award
University of Calgary · 2023–2025
IEEE BDS Best Paper Award
IEEE ICCIT 2014 — "Introducing Active Learning on Text-to-Emotion Analyzer"
Best Employee Appreciation Award
Advanced Software Development · June 2014
Let's Connect

Get in Touch

Open to research collaborations, speaking engagements, and academic discussions around trustworthy AI, NLP, and responsible machine learning.