Tegan Maharaj

I started post-secondary education in biology with a focus on health and neuropsychology, but transitioned to a concentration in ecology. Analyzing results for my honour’s research in bioremediation, I was introduced to programming for the first time and quickly realized I wanted to do machine learning. I recieved an NSERC scholarship to particpate in a large-scale research project on climate change, and later participated in a number of coding projects and discovered neural networks.

I began an MSc in computer science with Layachi Bentabet, studying biological realism in deep networks. During this time I was awarded a MITACS scholarship to be a machine learning research intern at iPerceptions, exploring semi-supervised learning in predictive models.

In November 2015 I completed my MSc, and in January 2016 began a PhD at Mila, a world-leading academic research institute in Montreal for AI and deep learning, where I am an NSERC and IVADO awarded scholar with Christopher Pal. I’m also a managing editor at the Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR), the top scholarly journal in machine learning, and co-founder of Climate Change AI (CCAI), an organization which catalyzes impactful work applying machine learning to problems of climate change.