CIFAR NAMES 29 NEW AI CHAIRS, APPOINTING 10 MILA RESEARCHERS
CIFAR announced the appointment of 29 new CIFAR AI chairs today during AICan 2021, bringing the international AI talent pool in Canada to 109. The announcement is part of CIFAR’s Pan-Canadian AI Strategy, which has allocated $86.5 million since 2017 to recruit and retain the world’s leading AI experts.
“With today’s announcement, we have now attracted more than 100 of the world’s top AI researchers to Canada. That’s an important milestone for the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy as it continues to strengthen Canada’s leadership in responsible AI, reflecting our values of human rights, inclusion and diversity. The Canada CIFAR AI Chairs have far-reaching impacts on Canada’s growing AI capabilities including contributing to the development of new start-ups, well-paying jobs for Canadians and innovative products and services that will enrich Canadians’ lives,” says the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry.
Mila is proud to count 10 new Canada CIFAR AI chairs among its faculty. These top AI talents will help Mila further advance research and maintain its scientific leadership in a range of fundamental and applied areas of AI. Their research will promote the development of novel approaches in machine learning for AI that are responsible, equitable and beneficial to society.
Mila’s newly appointed Canada CIFAR AI chairs, clockwise, from top left: Samira Ebrahimi Kahou, Guillaume Lajoie, Gauthier Gidel, Eilif Muller, Xujie Si, Guy Wolf, Golnoosh Farnadi, David Rolnick, Adam Oberman and Dzmitry Bahdanau.
The Canada CIFAR AI Chairs program provides researchers with long-term, dedicated funding to support their research and help train the next generation of top AI talent. The 29 chairs appointed by CIFAR were nominated in partnership with Canada’s three AI institutes: Amii (Edmonton), the Vector Institute (Toronto) and Mila – Quebec AI Institute (Montreal).
Mila faculty named as the 2021 chairs:
- Samira Ebrahimi Kahou, Associate Professor, École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS)
- Guillaume Lajoie, Assistant Professor, Université de Montréal
- Gauthier Gidel, Assistant Professor, Université de Montréal
- Eilif Muller, Assistant Professor, Université de Montréal, Research Centre of the Sainte-Justine University Hospital
- Xujie Si, Assistant Professor, McGill University
- Guy Wolf, Assistant Professor, Université de Montréal
- Golnoosh Farnadi, Assistant Professor, HEC Montréal
- David Rolnick, Assistant Professor, McGill University
- Adam Oberman, Professor, McGill University
- Dzmitry Bahdanau, Adjunct Professor, McGill University, ServiceNow Element AI
Source: https://cifar.ca/cifarnews/2021/01/19/canada-cifar-ai-chairs-program-surges-past-100/