Mila is proud to announce the appointment of four of its academic members as Canada-CIFAR AI Chairs, as well as the renewal of an existing chair.
Appointments
Felix Dangel, Assistant Professor at Concordia University and Associate Academic Member at Mila, focus his research on leveraging second-order properties, such as the curvature of the loss landscape. His work aims to optimize neural networks to make learning algorithms faster, more interpretable, and more computationally efficient.
David Meger, Associate Professor at McGill University and Associate Academic Member at Mila, concentrates his research on designing physical AI systems and autonomous robotics. By combining 3D spatial perception with data-efficient reinforcement learning algorithms, he seeks to enhance their adaptability and deployment in complex, real-world environments.
AJung Moon, Assistant Professor at McGill University and Core Academic Member at Mila, continues her work at the intersection of robotics, ethics, and human-machine interaction. Her research program aims to develop practical algorithmic governance frameworks and inform public policies governing the responsible development of autonomous systems.
Eva Portelance, Assistant Professor at HEC Montréal and Associate Academic Member at Mila, explores the connections between AI, linguistics, and cognitive science. Through computational modeling of human language acquisition, her work contributes to improving neural architectures while enriching cognitive learning theories.
Renewal
CIFAR also confirmed the renewal of the Canada CIFAR AI Chair for Amir-massoud Farahmand, Associate Professor at Polytechnique Montréal and Core Academic Member at Mila. This recognition highlights the excellence of his research into the computational and statistical mechanisms required to design efficient AI agents that interact with their environment and adaptively improve their long-term performance.
The Canada CIFAR AI Chairs Program is a cornerstone of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy. The program aims to recruit top AI researchers from around the world to Canada while supporting existing talent. It provides university-affiliated professors with long-term, dedicated funding to drive cutting-edge research programs and train the next generation of artificial intelligence leaders in Canada. To learn more, visit https://cifar.ca/ai/canada-cifar-ai-chairs/.
