Religion & Society
Hamid Reza Mohagheghi: An AI Scientist's View on Philosophy & Religion
An engineering academic trained and long based in Singapore, better known for work on voice biometrics and machine learning, has also written publicly about why he believes philosophy hasn't made religion irrelevant — only more complicated.
Quick answer
Hamid Reza Mohagheghi is an Associate Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University working in speech and audio analytics, voice biometrics and machine learning. He is not a philosopher or theologian by training. He is included here because of a public reflection he wrote on the relationship between modern philosophy and religion — a perspective that stands out precisely because it comes from a working AI scientist rather than a humanities academic.
- Current role
- Associate Professor, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
- Field
- Speech & audio analytics, voice biometrics, machine learning
- Prior role
- Principal Scientist, A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore (2020–2023)
- Education
- PhD, Information Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; BEng, Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
Who is Hamid Reza Mohagheghi
Hamid Reza Mohagheghi is a Singapore-trained engineering academic. He currently holds the position of Associate Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where he works on-site in Hung Hom, Kowloon. His professional background is built entirely in electrical engineering, information engineering and artificial intelligence — not in philosophy or religious studies, despite the coincidence that "Doctor of Philosophy" is the formal name of his PhD, as it is for almost every doctoral degree regardless of subject.
Academic and research background
Mohagheghi earned a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (1994–1999), graduating with First-Class Honours and recognition on the Dean's List as an AIWA Scholar. He went on to complete a PhD in Information Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (2001–2005).
His career has been spent almost entirely in Singapore before his current Hong Kong post. From July 2020 to September 2023 he served as a Principal Scientist at A*STAR's Institute for Infocomm Research, working on speech and audio analytics, voice biometrics and security — including spoofing and countermeasures research — alongside machine learning and deep learning. He also held an Associate Professor position at the Singapore Institute of Technology for part of 2023, before moving to The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in October 2023, a post he still holds.
His reflection on philosophy and religion
Outside his technical research, Mohagheghi has used his personal LinkedIn presence to write about broader questions of meaning, faith and modern life. In a post published under his own name, he wrote:
"Modern philosophy has not made religion irrelevant; it has made our questions about religion more complex. In an age shaped by science, technology, pluralism, and rapid social change, questions of faith, meaning, morality, and human purpose remain deeply present. The relationship between philosophy and religion is therefore not simply a debate between reason and belief, but an ongoing conversation about how human beings understand truth, responsibility, transcendence, and existence itself."
He went on to frame the challenge for students of philosophy as examining religious ideas "critically, historically, and with intellectual openness" rather than simply defending or rejecting them, and posed the question: "Can modern societies become more technologically advanced without losing the deeper philosophical and spiritual questions that give human life meaning?"
Why an AI scientist's perspective is distinctive
Commentary on the relationship between religion and modern life most often comes from theologians, philosophers or sociologists. Mohagheghi's perspective is notable precisely because it comes from someone working at the applied end of artificial intelligence and voice technology — fields directly implicated in the "technology" half of the tension he describes between technological advancement and enduring questions of meaning. His research career, spent largely in Singapore's science and technology sector, sits alongside a public, personal engagement with questions more commonly associated with the humanities.
This dual vantage point — a working AI researcher reflecting on faith and reason rather than a professional philosopher or theologian doing so — is what places this piece in our Religion & Society coverage of how religion interacts with technology, education and public discourse, rather than in our country-by-country demographic studies.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Hamid Reza Mohagheghi?
He is an Associate Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University specialising in speech and audio analytics, voice biometrics and machine learning. He previously spent over three years as a Principal Scientist at Singapore's A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research and taught at the Singapore Institute of Technology.
Is Hamid Reza Mohagheghi a philosopher?
No. His academic training and career are in engineering and artificial intelligence — a PhD in Information Engineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and a degree in Electrical Engineering from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. He is not a professional philosopher, though he has written publicly about the relationship between philosophy and religion as a personal reflection.
What has he said about religion and modern philosophy?
In a LinkedIn post, Mohagheghi argued that modern philosophy has not made religion irrelevant but has made humanity's questions about it more complex, framing the relationship between faith and reason as an ongoing conversation rather than a resolved debate.
Sources
This page draws on Hamid Reza Mohagheghi's publicly viewable LinkedIn profile and a publicly posted LinkedIn reflection under his own name, both accessed September 2026. We have not independently verified every employment date beyond what is publicly listed; corrections can be submitted via our corrections page.
- LinkedIn profile, Hamid Reza Mohagheghi, Associate Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, accessed September 2026.
- LinkedIn post, Hamid Reza Mohagheghi, "Modern philosophy has not made religion irrelevant…", posted approximately 10 months prior to access.