Scott Sanner
Associate Professor
Leads the D3M lab on conversational recommender systems, sequential decision-making and applied machine learning.
Scott Sanner's lab at Toronto works on reinforcement learning, recommendation, search & web and dialogue, generation & summarization. 69 papers since 2023, 30 at top venues, mostly AAAI and EMNLP. 8 PhD students and 4 master's students. 32 alumni, most often to Amazon and a startup. Applications close .
At a glance
- papers, 2023–2026
- 18/ year
- at T1 venues
- 43%
- PhD students
- 8
- MS students
- 4
- alumni listed
- 32
Papers by yearfrom the lab homepage, 2023–2026
- 20 papers2026 · T1 7 · collecting
- 16 papers2025 · T1 10
- 14 papers2024 · T1 7
- 19 papers2023 · T1 6
T1 venuesOtherVenues: AAAI, EMNLP, ICLR, SIGIR, ICAPS
Research focuspaper titles that use each topic's words
- Recommendation, search & web11 papers
- Reinforcement learning9 papers
- Dialogue, generation & summarization6 papers
- applied machine0 papers
- industrial engineering0 papers
Paper list
From the lab homepage.
202620 papers
- RLCACPO: Agent-Chained Policy Optimization for Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning
- ACL-26Bayesian Active Learning with Gaussian Processes Guided by LLM Relevance Scoring for Dense Passage Retrieval
- NeurIPS-26Blocked Gibbs meets Diffusion Transformers: Unsupervised Learning for Constraint Optimization
- SIGIR (T1)CommonWhy: A Dataset for Evaluating Entity-Based Causal Commonsense Reasoning in Large Language Models
- AAAI (T1)Efficient Modality Translation via Arbitrary Conditioning and Wasserstein Regularization
- ACL-26Evaluating Scene-based In-Situ Item Labeling for Immersive Conversational Recommendation
- IET Intelligent Transport SystemsGeneralized Multi-Hop Downstream Traffic Pressure for Heterogeneous Perimeter Control
- ICLR (T1)Improving Set Function Approximation with Quasi-Arithmetic Neural Networks
- CPAIOR-26Large Neighborhood Search meets Iterative Neural Constraint Heuristics
- Sociological Methods \& ResearchMapping Social Change: A Unified Framework for Temporal Clustering
- ACL-26Multimodal Item Scoring for Natural Language Recommendation via Gaussian Process Regression with LLM Relevance Judgments
- ICLR (T1)Natural Language PDDL (NL-PDDL) for Open-world Goal-oriented Commonsense Regression Planning in Embodied AI
202516 papers
- NeurIPS-25ActiveVOO: Value of Observation Guided Active Knowledge Acquisition for Open-World Embodied Lifted Regression Planning
- EMNLP (T1)Batched Self-Consistency Improves LLM Relevance Assessment and Ranking
- CPAIOR-25Bounded-Error Policy Optimization for Mixed Discrete-Continuous MDPs via Constraint Generation in Nonlinear Programming
- SIGIR (T1)CoLoTa: A Dataset for Entity-based Commonsense Reasoning over Long-Tail Knowledge
- ITSC-25Getting Ready for Deployment: Transformer-Enabled Robust Adaptive Traffic Signal Control
- AAAI (T1)ICE-T: Interactions-aware Cross-column Contrastive Embedding for Heterogeneous Tabular Datasets
- ICLR (T1)LLM-based Typed Hyperresolution for Commonsense Reasoning with Knowledge Bases
- EMNLP (T1)MA-DPR: Manifold-aware Distance Metrics for Dense Passage Retrieval
- AAAI (T1)ModelDiff: Symbolic Dynamic Programming for Model-Aware Policy Transfer in Deep Q-Learning
- IEEE Open Journal of Intelligent Transportation SystemsMulti-Hop Upstream Anticipatory Traffic Signal Control With Deep Reinforcement Learning
- ACL (T1)Open-World Planning via Lifted Regression with LLM-Inferred Affordances for Embodied Agents
- ACL-25Q-STRUM Debate: Query-Driven Contrastive Summarization for Recommendation Comparison
202414 papers
- KDD (T1)A Review of Modern Recommender Systems Using Generative Models (Gen-RecSys)
- AAAI (T1)Bayesian Inference with Complex Knowledge Graph Evidence
- Data Mining and Knowledge DiscoveryBayesian Network Motifs for Reasoning over Heterogeneous Unlinked Datasets
- RecSys (T1)Bayesian Optimization with LLM-Based Acquisition Functions for Natural Language Preference Elicitation
- Transportation Research RecordeMARLIN: Distributed Coordinated Adaptive Traffic Signal Control with Topology-Embedding Propagation
- Trans. Intell. Transport. Sys.eMARLIN+: Addressing Partial Observability to Promote Traffic Signal Coordination by Leveraging Historical Information
- NAACL-24Gaussian Process Optimization for Adaptable Multi-Objective Text Generation using Linearly-Weighted Language Models
- ICAPSJaxPlan and GurobiPlan: Optimization Baselines for Replanning in Discrete and Mixed Discrete-Continuous Probabilistic Domains
- TMLR (T1)LLMs and the Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus: Successes, Failures, and the Importance of Object-based Representations
- SIGIR (T1)Retrieval-Augmented Conversational Recommendation with Prompt-based Semi-Structured Natural Language State Tracking
- EMNLP (T1)Right for Right Reasons: Large Language Models for Verifiable Commonsense Knowledge Graph Question Answering
- AI MagazineThe 2023 International Planning Competition
202319 papers
- Handbook on Artificial Intelligence and TransportA Comparative Evaluation of Established and Contemporary Deep Learning Traffic Prediction Methods
- Handbook on Artificial Intelligence and TransportA Critical Review of Traffic Signal Control and a Novel Unified View of Reinforcement Learning and Model Predictive Control Approaches for Adaptive Traffic Signal Control
- CPAIOR-23A Mixed-Integer Linear Programming Reduction of Disjoint Bilinear Programs via Symbolic Variable Elimination
- ACM Transactions on the WebA User-Centric Analysis of Social Media for Stock Market Prediction
- SIGIR (T1)Bayesian Knowledge-driven Critiquing with Indirect Evidence
- ICLR (T1)Conservative Bayesian Model-Based Value Expansion for Offline Policy Optimization
- EMNLP-23COUNT: COntrastive UNlikelihood Text Style Transfer for Text Detoxification
- Findings of ACLDiffuDetox: A Mixed Diffusion Model for Text Detoxification
- AAAI (T1)Graphs, Constraints, and Search for the Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus
- RecSys (T1)Large Language Models are Competitive Near Cold-start Recommenders for Language- and Item-based Preferences
- ITSCPerimeter Control Using Deep Reinforcement Learning: A Model-free Approach towards Homogeneous Flow Rate Optimization
- SIGIR (T1)Recipe-MPR: A Test Collection for Evaluating Multi-aspect Preference-based Natural Language Retrieval
Where alumni went32 listed, 78% to industry
Industry 7Academia 2
Most often to
- Amazon
- a startup
- Borealis AI
Also to
- Australian Institute for Machine Learning
- Monash University
Apply to TorontoFall 2027
Computer Science MSc/PhD
- Round
- Single round (Dec 1)
- Opens
- —
- GRE
- optional
- English
- TOEFL/IELTS if applicable
- Fee
- CAD 135
Confirmed on the program page.
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