SRI Seminar Series: Mamatha Bhat

Our weekly SRI Seminar Series welcomes Dr. Mamatha Bhat, a clinician-scientist at the University of Toronto and Toronto General Hospital Research Institute whose work bridges hepatology, transplantation, and artificial intelligence in medicine.

In this talk, Dr. Bhat will examine how multi-agentic AI can enhance fairness and accountability in liver transplant selection. By modeling clinical, ethical, and psychosocial perspectives as autonomous agents within a shared decision framework, this approach aims to make complex transplant decisions more transparent, data-informed, and ethically grounded.

Moderator: Nisarg Shah, Department of Computer Science

Talk title: Multi-Agentic AI in Healthcare to Guide Objective Decision-Making

Abstract:

Multi-agentic artificial intelligence (AI) offers a promising framework to enhance objectivity and consistency in complex healthcare decision-making. In liver transplantation, patient selection involves multidisciplinary deliberation that integrates medical urgency, predicted graft and patient survival, psychosocial readiness, and ethical fairness. However, these decisions are often influenced by subjective judgment, institutional norms, and implicit biases. A multi-agentic AI system could model each domain—clinical, psychosocial, ethical, and logistical—as an autonomous “agent” contributing specialized evidence and reasoning to a collective decision process. By simulating multiple perspectives and weighting them transparently, such a system can identify discordant assessments, reveal hidden biases, and suggest balanced recommendations grounded in data and ethical frameworks. Applied to a liver transplant selection committee, multi-agentic AI could standardize patient prioritization, forecast outcomes using longitudinal data, and document rationale for each decision, supporting both accountability and fairness. Ethically, this approach must preserve human oversight, protect patient privacy, and ensure that AI agents reflect equitable values rather than amplify existing disparities. Ultimately, multi-agentic AI can serve as an intelligent decision-support collaborator—enhancing, rather than replacing, the human deliberative process—to promote more objective, transparent, and ethically grounded transplant decisions across institutions.

About the speaker

Dr. Mamatha Bhat is a hepatologist and clinician-scientist at UHN’s Ajmera Transplant Centre, and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Toronto. She is also a scientist at Toronto General Hospital Research Institute and has a graduate appointment with the Institute of Medical Sciences. Dr. Bhat completed her medical school and residency training, including the Clinician Investigator Program, at McGill University. She then completed a transplant hepatology fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, followed by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Fellowship for Health Professionals, through which she completed a PhD in medical biophysics (U of T).

The goal of Dr. Bhat’s research program is to improve long-term outcomes of liver transplantation through a precision medicine approach. Her program is unique in using tools of artificial intelligence with bioinformatics to personalize the care of liver transplant recipients based on an improved biological understanding of the liver and disease after transplant. Her interdisciplinary program and team have been supported by CIHR, Terry Fox Research Institute, Stem Cell Network, Canadian Donation and Transplant Research Program, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Canadian Liver Foundation (CLF), among others. Dr. Bhat is on the executive committee of the CDTRP; she serves as vice-chair of the International Liver Transplant Society Basic and Translational Science Research committee and is an associate editor for the American Journal of Transplantation. Dr. Bhat has also been the recipient of recognitions such as the 2022 CIHR-INMD-CASL Early Career Researcher prize, the 2020 Polanyi Prize and the 2021 American Society of Transplantation Basic Science Career Development Award.

About the SRI Seminar Series

The SRI Seminar Series brings together the Schwartz Reisman community and beyond for a robust exchange of ideas that advance scholarship at the intersection of technology and society. Seminars are led by a leading or emerging scholar and feature extensive discussion.

About the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

The Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society is a research institute at the University of Toronto that explores the ethical and societal implications of technology. Our mission is to deepen knowledge of technologies, societies, and humanity by integrating research across traditional boundaries to build human-centred solutions.

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