Lassonde School of Engineering welcomes three new faculty members

York University’s Lassonde School of Engineering welcomes three new faculty members in 2026, bringing expertise spanning machine learning, robotics and autonomous systems, human-robot collaboration and engineering education.

Shweta Mahajan

Earlier this year, Mahajan joined Lassonde as an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Prior to joining York, she was a senior machine learning researcher at Qualcomm AI Research where she worked at the forefront of artificial intelligence and machine learning.  

Her academic experience spans leading research institutions in Canada and Europe. From 2022 to 2023, Mahajan was a postdoctoral researcher with the Computer Vision Group at The University of British Columbia and a postdoctoral affiliate at the Vector Institute of AI in Toronto. She earned her PhD from Technische Universität Darmstadt and her MSc from Universität des Saarlandes, where she was the member of the Machine Learning Group and the Max Planck Institute of Informatics. 

Mahajan’s work has received international recognition, including a best paper award from the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research in 2020, and her PhD thesis was featured by Gesellschaft für Informatik in 2022. Her research focuses on computer vision and machine learning, with a focus on generative modelling, multimodal learning, scene understanding, data synthesis and visual inference – areas with growing potential to shape how intelligent systems understand, generate and interact with the world around them.

Zahra Arjmandi

Zahra Arjmandi joined Lassonde as an assistant professor working in robotics and autonomous systems in the Department of Earth & Space Science & Engineering. Her research addresses uncertainty in perception and decision-making, with an emphasis on probabilistic estimation and the integration of learning-based methods into classical model-based frameworks.

She holds a PhD from York University, a Master of Science in Mechatronics Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tehran. She subsequently held a joint postdoctoral research appointment at York University and the University of Waterloo. Her research has been published in IEEE IROS, IEEE CASE, ICAR, ITSC, and the International Journal of Robotics Research. She has also collaborated with industry partners including Thales Canada, contributing to a project recognized with the 2021 PEO York Chapter Engineering Research Project of the Year Award.

Her work spans the full development stack, from sensor modelling and signal processing through perception, planning, and deployment on physical platforms, an approach grounded in the conviction that robust autonomy is built by understanding how each layer of a system constrains the next. She brings the same perspective to teaching and mentorship, favouring course design and student supervision that put people in direct contact with real tools and real problem structures.

Shaundell Dubay

Dubay joined Lassonde as a sessional assistant professor (Teaching Stream) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. She earned her PhD in Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering from the University of Waterloo, where her research focused on developing a framework for human-robot interaction in industrial environments. She completed her MASc in Mechanical Engineering from Dalhousie University and BSc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Brunswick.

Dubay is dedicated to fostering an engaging and supportive learning environment and brings this commitment to both her teaching and research. Her research interests include human-robot collaboration, multi-agent systems, advanced controls and robotic applications.

“We were delighted to welcome Shweta, Zahra and Shaundell to Lassonde this year, each bringing distinct expertise, experiences and perspectives to our community,” said Jane Goodyer, dean of the Lassonde School of Engineering. “At Lassonde, we’re always looking ahead, challenging conventional thinking and creating space for different perspectives and ideas. Shweta, Zahra and Shaundell each embody that spirit, and I’m excited to see how their research, teaching and mentorship will advance innovation and inspire the next generation to make a meaningful difference.”