Email policy of Prof. Shirmohammadi

1. Emails from potential graduate or postdoctoral students, asking me to be their supervisor, or if there is any opening in my research group. If at times there is an opening in my group, it is taken very quickly by students with whom I am already in touch with through the classes that I teach, or students recommended by my research group members or by my international collaborators. You can still email me your CV, but don't be disappointed if I don't reply.
2. Emails from people asking for internship opportunities. I do not offer any internships.
3. Emails from readers of my conference and journal papers, asking for help, or the source code, or dataset of the systems presented in those papers. If you have a specific technical question which is not mentioned in the paper (not general questions like "can you please help me to do my project similar to your paper?") or you have come across an error, then I or my co-authors will be happy to answer it.
4. Emails from people asking for advice about their studies or careers or life. In my experience email is not the proper medium for such conversations. If you are in Ottawa, please make an appointment and come to my office, then I will be happy to help if I can.
5. Emails from people working in the industry asking about how to solve a specific technical problem. I will be glad to offer my technical services as a consultant for a fee, but not free.
6. Emails from students asking me to write a recommendation letter for their scholarship, university admission, job reference, etc., IF the student has not done at least one project directly with me, such as a thesis, capstone project, honours project, or a project that has led to publication. Reason: As much as I would like to help, I cannot write a useful recommendation letter for you if you have not worked with me directly. Getting an A+ in my course (which can be seen from your transcript anyway) or 90% in your project in my course is not enough to write an effective recommendation letter, and will not help your case anyway, considering how competitive things are these days. It is better for you to obtain such letters from professors with whom you have worked directly.
7. Emails from students taking my courses, unless 1) to report an error or a missing link, or 2) pre-authorized emails, as explained in the class. No other email will be answered, no matter how urgent it might seem to you, even for last minute and/or technical questions like "Can you please explain more question 2 in assignment 1?" or "what is a Critical Path?" or "I missed the class today, what did you teach?" etc.
8. Emails from students about course registration issues, such as wanting to register for my course but not being able to because the course is full, or wanting to move from one section or one lab of the course to another.
9. Emails from publishers, conferences, journals, individuals, and organizations, inviting me to write a book, give a speech, submit an invited paper, be the EiC, AE, or Editor for a journal, do a survey, be part of an initiative, join a webcast, create a new group, write joint papers together, do collaboration, etc. You are of course welcome to ask me, but if you don't hear back, it means I am not interested.