Dr. Osmar R. Zaïane is a Professor of Computing Science at the University of Alberta, a Fellow of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii), and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair. Recognized as a leader in artificial intelligence and data science, he is also a Fellow of both the Canadian Academy of Engineering and the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association.

With a Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University (1999), Dr. Zaïane has made significant contributions to knowledge discovery and data mining, authoring over 450 peer-reviewed publications in top international conferences and journals. He has played a pivotal role in shaping the field as an Associate Editor for leading journals and as a program chair and general chair for numerous prestigious conferences.

His outstanding contributions have earned him multiple accolades, including the CS-Can/Info-Can Lifetime Achievement Award (2023), the Killam Professorship, the McCalla Research Professorship, and the ACM SIGKDD Service Award from the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Mining. Through his research, leadership, and service, Dr. Zaïane continues to advance the frontiers of AI, big data, and data analytics.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a troubling increase in mood disorders and other mental health conditions, likely driven in part by increased awareness and recognition of these issues. Access to reliable mental health resources and services is essential for creating supportive environments that promote individual well-being. Yet, these existing resources are often underutilized—even by professionals—due to a lack of awareness or visibility.

While modern information retrieval technologies may suggest that building a publicly accessible mental health resource repository is straightforward, the reality is far more complex. This talk explores the challenges involved in developing a safe, private, and trustworthy conversational agent designed to recommend mental health resources. In the era of large language models, we will discuss the technical, ethical, and practical hurdles we faced—and the solutions we found—in crafting a system that supports mental wellness with sensitivity and care.