Dr. Ihsan Ayyub Qazi @ LUMS

Professor of Computer Science

Syed Babar Ali School of Science & Engineering

Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)

[CV] [Email] Phone: +92 42 35608368

I'm broadly interested in researching networked systems (cloud, social media, AI/LLM-based systems) and their societal impacts. My current research centers on digital development & equity, misinformation, and digital health.

Research: Cognitive Reflection & Misinformation

Interview: Bridging the Digital Divide

Bridging the DivideWhat has been an enabler for many has also created wide disparities. Ihsan Qazi is working toward a more equitable internet.

Research: Rethinking Web for Affordability

What ChatGPT means for Higher Education?

August 2024 [ACL]: We developed a novel Urdu deepfake audio dataset targeting two spoofing attacks (Tacotron, VITS TTS). The dataset construction involves careful consideration of phonemic cover and balance. AASIST-L evaluation yields EERs of 0.495 (TTS) and 0.524 (Tacotron), with speaker variation. A human study shows limited detection ability, with 1 in 3 fake samples mistaken as real. Our work aids deepfake detection in low-resource languages, bridging critical gap in existing datasets.

June, 2023 [Journal of Development Economics]: Misinformation is a growing concern in developing countries with potentially far-reaching consequences. We evaluate whether educational interventions improve discernment of news using a randomized control trial. We find no effect of video-based general educational messages. However, when such video messages is combined with personalized feedback, accuracy rate improves. You can read the full paper here.

September, 2022 [ACM IMC]: Today, more than 200 million users use Android Go, a mobile operating system for entry-level smartphones. Yet little is known about its impact on mobile Web performance. We conducted the first empirical study about the causal impact of Android Go using controlled experiments and a set of methodological approaches from the econometrics literature.

July, 2022 [Harvard Kennedy Misinformation Review]: The uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic was fueled by the COVID-19 “infodemic.” We evaluated the relationship between individual differences in cognitive reflection and the ability to discern between true and false COVID-19 information using a random sample of 621 low- and middle-income users in Pakistan. We find that higher cognitive reflection test scores are associated with greater truth discernment for COVID-19 headlines, less trust but greater use of formal information sources, and greater demand for KN95 masks.

Recent News

Recently, I had an insightful conversation with Sehar Ghafoor on National Television's "Smart World" about the transformative technologies shaping our future. We explored AI's potential in various fields, the importance of satellite internet and space exploration, the persistent gender gap in technology and the need for skills like critical thinking and empathy. Check out the conversation here: Link to YouTube Video
- Key takeaway: collaboration between humans and AI is the way forward.
Received the OpenAI Researcher Access Program Award, 2025
Our work on hybrid Active Learning for Neural Machine Translation has been accepted at COLING 2025
It was a truly enriching experience teaching an 8-session module on Health Data Science as part of the Certificate for Health Professions Education (CHPE) program at LUMS! The program, which is recognized by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), brought together an impressive cohort of 62 health professionals representing 60 diverse hospitals and medical universities across 15 cities in Pakistan over a comprehensive 6-month period. The opportunity to bridge the gap between clinical expertise and data analytics created a uniquely engaging learning environment. What made this experience particularly special was the diverse perspectives these healthcare practitioners brought to the classroom.
It was a pleasure serving as Co-Chair of ACM CoNEXT 2024. The opportunity to bring together such an outstanding program was humbling. I was particularly inspired by the brilliant young researchers who shared their work and the sense of community we built together through engaging discussions.
Delighted to share that our work on developing the first Urdu deepfake audio dataset for deepfake detection has been accepted at ACL 2024 Findings!
Our work on the first large-scale analysis of the adoption of third-party serving infrastructures in government digital services will appear in ACM IMC 2024. The study builds on data collected across 61 countries spanning every continent and region, capturing over 82% of the world’s Internet population.
🎉 We recently launched GradEcho, a forum to democratize access to high-quality advice and mentorship related to graduate school. If you are looking for advice on graduate school applications, tips on building your profile, or guidance on finalizing your university, you'll find a community of professors, admission committee members, and graduate students ready to help at GradEcho. Sign up here: (https://gradecho.actualaiz.com/)
Delivered a mini-course on Health Data Science as Part of the LUMS Certificate in Health Professions Education (CHPE), Feb-Mar, 2024. It was a pleasure interacting with nearly 50 doctors from the most reputable hospitals in Pakistan. Their yearning for learning about how data science can inform their clinical practice was simply superb!
Happy to share that we have two papers accepted at TheWebConf 2024 (formerly WWW) titled, "Analyzing Ad Exposure and Content in Child-Oriented Videos on YouTube" and "Uncovering the Hidden Data Costs of Mobile YouTube Video Ads." All the student co-authors in these papers were our fantastic LUMS undergraduate students!
Conducted the Google exploreCSR Workshop at LUMS, Feb 16-17 & 25-26, 2024 on “Navigating the Computing Research Landscape Skills and Strategies for Aspiring Female Students.” It was a delight to interact with such passionate and driven young women about computing research.
I'm chairing the TPC of ACM CoNEXT 2024 along with Gareth Tyson. Please consider submitting your work! (link to CFP)
I'm serving as the Area Chair (AC) @ The ACM Web Conference (WWW'24) - Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT track. Please consider submitting your work there!

(older news)