CIFAR

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Leah Cowen

Vice-president of Research and Innovation and Strategic Initiatives

Molecular Genetics

Fans following every twist and turn of the HBO series The Last of Us have found themselves intrigued by its premise – based on a 2013 video game, the series is set 20 years into a pandemic caused by a mass fungal infection, which causes its hosts to transform into zombie-type creatures.

Leah Cowen

With the season finale on March 12 approaching, Leah Cowen, co-director of the fungal kingdom program at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and ��ϲ��’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives, spoke with CBC Radio’s The Current about the staggering impact of fungi on our world – from benefits to threats.

“They're the only organisms that are causing extinctions in real time. There are millions of different kinds of fungal species out there, and they cause different kinds of infections,” Cowen, a professor in the department of molecular genetics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, told host Matt Galloway.

“Some of them you can acquire by inhaling spores that are widespread in the environment. Some of them are already inside your body and living there as sort of natural members of your microbiota. And so there are different kinds of infection … all the way through to invasive disease, which would be disseminated through the bloodstream – and those are the ones that are really deadly.”

While fungi may not turn people into zombie-like creatures like on The Last of Us, they do kill an estimated 1.5 million people each year and can threaten the health of immunocompromised people, Cowen said, noting that despite such serious implications, research into fungi remains underfunded.

The fungal world does have its benefits, Cowen pointed out – including helping plants to “colonize the planet,” their ability to break down plastics and help with carbon capture – but more study of both the positives and negatives would further reveal the full complexity of these organisms.

Cowen, who admits she hasn’t yet seen The Last of Us, said that understanding fungi could help us better understand ourselves.

“Fungi are actually closely related to humans. It may not look like it – but in fact, it's true,” she said. “Which means that fungi serve as fantastic model organisms – so we can study the function of genes or biological processes in a simpler system and be able to learn what might be relevant in the context of more complex organisms and human biology and disease.”

Listen to Leah Cowen on The Current

Two ��ϲ�� professors named Canada CIFAR AI Chairs

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 18:15:23 +0000

Two ��ϲ�� professors named Canada CIFAR AI Chairs

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 10/31/2022 - 14:15

Cutline

(Photos courtesy of Gillian Hadfield and Anatole von Lilienfeld)

��ϲ�� News Team

Topic

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Acceleration Consortium

Faculty of Law

��ϲ�� professors Gillian Hadfield, director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology & Society, and Anatole von Lilienfeld, of the department of chemistry in the Faculty of Arts & Science, have been named Canada CIFAR AI Chairs in recognition of their global leadership in artificial intelligence research.

Seven of the eight new chairs, including Hadfield and von Lillienfeld, are affiliated with Toronto’s Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, launched in 2017 through a partnership between ��ϲ��, federal and provincial governments and industry. The eighth chair has been appointed to Edmonton’s Amii.

Hadfield, a professor in ��ϲ��’s Faculty of Law and the Rotman School of Management, becomes the first Vector-affiliated social scientist to be named a CIFAR AI chair.

“It’s both inspiring and humbling to be joining the growing cohort of exceptional people that comprise Canada’s CIFAR AI Chairs,” Hadfield said. “I’m most looking forward to deepening interdisciplinary collaborations that I believe can contribute to meeting the challenge of building AI systems that promote human well-being in responsible and socially beneficial ways.”

Machine learning and physical chemistry specialist von Lilienfeld joined ��ϲ�� last year. He is the Clark Chair in Advanced Materials at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence and a member of ��ϲ��’s Acceleration Consortium, an institutional strategic initiative at ��ϲ�� that focuses on combining AI and robotics to accelerate the design and discovery of new materials.

“It's an honour to be a part of this groundbreaking community,” said von Lilienfeld, who holds a cross appointment in the department of materials science and engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “Joining Canada's CIFAR AI Chairs will be a great opportunity to further the use of AI for chemical and materials sciences.

“In our search for better, safer, more sustainable materials and products, AI is an invaluable tool that will help guide and accelerate our research and development.”

The CIFAR AI Chairs program is a cornerstone of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, which aims to recruit the world's top AI researchers to Canada and retain existing talent. It provides university-affiliated faculty with long-term, dedicated funding to support cutting-edge research programs and help train the next generation of AI leaders.

This latest round of appointments will advance Canadian research in fields of inquiry identified through the second phase of the strategy as priority areas: AI for health; AI for energy and the environment; the fundamental science of AI; and the responsible use of AI, CIFAR said in a statement.

“The new Canada CIFAR AI Chairs joining Amii and the Vector Institute are an extraordinarily talented group of researchers who will continue to educate and inspire the next generation of AI leaders and advance research in exciting and important areas,” said Elissa Strome, CIFAR’s executive director, Pan-Canadian AI Strategy.

Leah Cowen, ��ϲ��’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives, said the appointments – alongside the announcement a few days earlier of the Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship, a program of Schmidt Futures, illustrate the importance of the thriving AI ecosystem in Toronto and across Canada.

“Canada led the early development of deep learning and the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy is building on the legacy of that pioneering work,” Cowen said. “Twenty-three researchers at ��ϲ�� now hold AI chairs through this important program, and their transformative research – along with the work of all the CIFAR AI chairs, across the country – is advancing not only the development, but the responsible use of artificial intelligence and its applications to build a better, stronger future.

“Gillian Hadfield and Anatole von Lilienfeld will be important contributors to this vibrant, dynamic community of world-leading AI researchers.”

François-Philippe Champagne, minister of innovation, science and industry, said in a statement that AI is one of the greatest technological transformations and economic opportunities of our time.

“Congratulations to our eight new chairholders – you join other world-leading researchers who are driving efforts to build a stronger economy, develop cleaner energy, improve public health, and increase innovation in Canada,” he said.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol visits ��ϲ�� for AI roundtable

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 14:02:18 +0000

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol visits ��ϲ�� for AI roundtable

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 09/26/2022 - 10:02

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South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, left, shakes hands with ��ϲ�� President Meric Gertler outside of Simcoe Hall (photo by Polina Teif)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Global Lens

Leah Cowen

Computer Science

Deep Learning

Geoffrey Hinton

Global

Meric Gertler

Robotics

South Korea

The ��ϲ�� welcomed South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to campus last week to discuss artificial intelligence (AI) – its rise, potential applications and opportunities for further collaboration between ��ϲ�� and South Korean partners.

President Yoon hailed Toronto as an AI powerhouse, saying that Canada’s status as a world leader in AI and a centre of the global AI supply chain was the result of the country recognizing the potential economic and social impacts of the technology early on.

He also said the tenacity and persistence of researchers such as University Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneer of the AI field of deep learning, served as a “benchmark” for South Korean efforts to advance the technologies of the future, adding that he was delighted to visit ��ϲ��, which he described as “one of the most prestigious universities in North America.”

��ϲ�� President Meric Gertler, for his part, said he was “deeply honoured” to welcome President Yoon, who, he said, “has made it a priority to work closely with South Korea's allies and partners, advancing openness, human rights, democracy and the rule of law, with clear purpose and integrity.”

(Photo by Polina Teif)

President Gertler noted that the South Korean delegation’s visit comes at a time when Toronto has emerged as the third-largest tech hub in North America, with the city’s AI and machine learning ecosystem at the heart of this growth.

“Together with the Vector Institute, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), MaRS and other partners – all within a walking distance of this room – we have created one of the world’s richest pools of talent,” President Gertler said.

He added that ��ϲ��, its local partners and South Korean organizations stand to learn much from each other when it comes to AI research, development, innovation and education.

“Partnering with Korea’s leading universities, innovative firms and exceptionally talented researchers is an extraordinary opportunity for all parties to benefit as we deepen our collective commitment to excellence and to tackling the world’s most pressing challenges.”

(Photo by Johnny Guatto)

President Yoon’s visit to ��ϲ�� took place during the first day of his two-day visit to Canada, which included a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa the following day.

It also came less than two weeks after the government of Ontario concluded a trade mission to South Korea and Japan, led by Vic Fedeli, the province’s minister of economic development job creation and trade.

Fedeli, who attended the ��ϲ�� event, said Toronto’s reputation as a global hub in AI was regularly impressed upon him during his time in South Korea.

“At every single stop that we made, we heard people talk about Canada, AI, ��ϲ��, the Vector Institute – they see Canada as a real leader in AI and they’re very eager to learn,” Fedeli said.

He noted there was a strong desire in South Korea to see more Korean students come to Canada to further their education in STEM fields, including in AI. “They want a bigger influx of Korean students – and we told them, ‘The door’s open,’ because we really believe this is going to help society. We’ve seen some examples of what AI has done and we’re very eager to continue to see the development of AI.”

(Photo by Johnny Guatto)

Fedeli added that he hoped the high-level meeting would further strengthen the economic relationship between Ontario and South Korea, helping to spark AI advances that give both Ontarian and Korean companies a competitive edge on the global stage.

Held at Simcoe Hall, the meeting included a roundtable discussion titled “AI for the Better Future of Humanity,” that featured AI leaders and luminaries, including Hinton and Lee Jong-ho, the Republic of Korea’s Minister of Science and ICT (information and communication technology).

The talk, moderated by Leah Cowen (pictured below), ��ϲ��’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives, also included contributions from Garth Gibson, president and CEO of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence; Elissa Strome, executive director of Pan-Canadian AI Strategy at CIFAR; and Professor Lisa Austin, chair in law and technology at ��ϲ��’s Faculty of Law and associate director at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society.

(Photo by Johnny Guatto)

Attendees watched demonstrations by ��ϲ�� professors and graduate students from the ��ϲ�� Robotics Institute, as well as presentations by South Korean companies, including Samsung and LG – both of which have expanded their presence and connections with Toronto and ��ϲ�� in recent years – and was also used to announce a new ��ϲ�� exchange program with the South Korean government’s Institute for Information & communication Technology Planning & evaluation (IITP).

(Photo by Polina Teif)

On the subject of AI, Hinton said he believes the deep learning revolution is just getting underway and that he expects tremendous growth in the years ahead.

“We now know that if you take a neural net and you just make it bigger and give it more data and more computing power, it’ll work better. So even with no new scientific insights, things are going to improve,” Hinton said during the roundtable discussion. “But we also know there are tens of thousands of brilliant young minds now thinking about how to make these networks better, so there will be many new scientific insights.”

(Photo by Johnny Guatto)

In the long-term, Hinton (pictured at the lecturn above) said he envisions a revolution in AI hardware led by advancements in “neuromorphic hardware” – computers and hardware that model artificial neural networks.

“I think Korea may have a big role to play in this,” Hinton said, noting one of the world’s leading experts in this area is Sebastian Seung, Samsung’s president and head of research – who attended the Simcoe Hall event.

When asked to share his thoughts on how Canada achieved its leadership position in AI, Hinton cited three foundational factors: a tolerant, liberal society that encourages leading researchers to settle here; the federal government’s funding for curiosity-driven basic research; and CIFAR’s funding, in 2004, of the Neural Computation and Adaptive Perception program, which is credited with kickstarting the revolution in deep learning.

Following the discussion, event attendees, including ��ϲ�� students, watched presentations on avenues for AI research and collaboration by representatives of five South Korean companies: LG, Samsung, Naver, KT (formerly Korea Telecom) and SK Telecom.

(Photo by Johnny Guatto)

Alex Mihailidis, ��ϲ��’s associate vice-president, international partnerships, then announced that ��ϲ�� had signed a memorandum of understanding with IITP, based in Seoul, to launch a bi-national education program in AI.

“We expect that in the fall of 2023, we will be accepting 30 students from Korea who will be going through a custom-made program around AI and its applications,” Mihailidis said. “This is a groundbreaking program that we expect will not only flourish here in Toronto but will grow – hopefully across our two great countries and around the world.”

(Photo by Johnny Guatto)

Earlier, Mihailidis and President Gertler led President Yoon and Fedeli through four demonstrations showcasing some of the cutting-edge technologies being developed by ��ϲ�� professors and their graduate students.

The technologies included: a wearable robotic exoskeleton for walking assistance and rehab demonstrated by Mihailidis and post-doctoral researcher Brokoslaw Laschowski; a sensory soft robotic hand for human-robot interaction demonstrated by Professor Xinyu Liu of the department of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, graduate student Zhanfeng Zhou and post-doctoral researcher Peng Pan; a multimodal perception system for autonomous vehicles showcased by Jiachen (Jason) Zhou, a graduate student in robotics and aerospace engineering; and a nanorobot for precision manipulation under electron microscope that was demonstrated by Yu Sun, professor in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering and director of the ��ϲ�� Robotics Institute.

(Photo by Johnny Guatto)

Read a story about the visit in the Korea Times

Canada must boost support of science and tech: President Meric Gertler and Alan Bernstein in the Globe and Mail

rahul.kalvapalle — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 20:01:29 +0000

Canada must boost support of science and tech: President Meric Gertler and Alan Bernstein in the Globe and Mail

rahul.kalvapalle Thu, 09/08/2022 - 16:01

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(Photos by Lisa Sakulensky and courtesy of Alan Bernstein)

Topic

Climate Change

Meric Gertler

Canada must step up its support of R&D in science and technology if the country’s innovation economy is to remain competitive globally.

That was the key message of a Globe and Mail op-ed by ��ϲ�� President Meric Gertler and Alan Bernstein, president and CEO of CIFAR (Canadian Institute for Advanced Research), who noted substantial recent investments by the U.S. government in the country’s AI, robotics, clean electricity and green energy sectors.

“The U.S. initiatives demand a commensurate response from Canada both in size and breadth. Otherwise, our economic performance will continue to lag behind other advanced economies,” Bernstein and President Gertler warn in the op-ed published Sept. 5.

Support in basic research must come from government, according to Bernstein and President Gertler, given the public interest in challenges ranging from vaccine development to clean energy and income inequality. Meanwhile, private sector investment in market-oriented R&D is vital because it “leverages the research of our universities and turns discovery into new products and new companies that create employment and prosperity.”

Bernstein and President Gertler note that government and private-sector leadership are equally essential to creating a robust innovation ecosystem. Case in point: CIFAR’s early support for the groundbreaking AI research of Geoffrey Hinton, University Professor Emeritus in the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science, led to the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy and helped establish Canada as a world leader in AI.

“Now we need to expand on what we’ve learned from AI as the basis for a comprehensive and ambitious research-and-innovation policy,” Bernstein and President Gertler write.

Read the op-ed in the Globe and Mail

If robots need to persuade humans, they shouldn't resemble authority figures: ��ϲ�� study

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 20:01:43 +0000

If robots need to persuade humans, they shouldn't resemble authority figures: ��ϲ�� study

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 09/24/2021 - 16:01

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��ϲ�� Engineering researchers found that Pepper, a humanoid robot, was less persuasive when it was presented to study participants as an authority figure than when it was presented as a peer-helper (photo by Liz Do)

Tyler Irving

Topic

Breaking Research

Mechanical & Industrial Engineering

Graduate Students

Robotics

Robots

In the future, socially interactive robots could help seniors age in place or assist residents of long-term care facilities with daily activities. But will people actually accept advice or instructions from a machine?

That depends on how the robot in question behaves, according to a ��ϲ�� study.

“When robots present themselves as human-like social agents, we tend to play along with that sense of humanity and treat them much like we would a person,” says Shane Saunderson, a PhD candidate in the department of mechancial and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering who is lead author of a paper published recently in Science Robotics.

“But even simple tasks – like asking someone to take their medication – have a lot of social depth to them. If we want to put robots in those situations, we need to better understand the psychology of robot-human interactions.”

Saunderson says there’s no magic bullet when it comes to persuasion – even among humans. But one key concept is authority, which can be further divided into two types: formal authority and real authority.

“Formal authority comes from your role. If someone is your boss, your teacher or your parent, they have a certain amount of formal authority,” he explains. “Real authority has to do with the control of decisions – often for entities such as financial rewards or punishments.”

To simulate these concepts, Saunderson set up an experiment where a humanoid robot named Pepper was used to help 32 volunteer test subjects complete a series of simple tasks, such as memorizing and recalling items in a sequence.

For some participants, Pepper was presented as a formal authority figure: It took on the role of researcher and was the only “person” the subjects interacted with. For others, Saunderson was presented as the researcher, while Pepper helped the subjects complete the tasks.

Each participant ran through a set of three tasks twice. First, Pepper offered financial rewards for correct answers to simulate positive real authority. Next, Pepper offered financial penalties for incorrect answers, simulating negative real authority.

Generally, Pepper was less persuasive when it was presented as an authority figure than when it was presented as a peer-helper. Saunderson says the result might stem from a question of legitimacy.

“Social robots are not commonplace today, and in North America at least, people lack both relationships and a sense of shared identity with robots,” he says. “It might be hard for them to come to see them as a legitimate authority.”

Another possibility is that people might disobey an authoritative robot because they feel threatened by it. Saunderson notes that the aversion to being persuaded by a robot acting authoritatively seemed to be particularly strong among male participants, who have been shown in previous studies to be more defiant to authority figures than females and may perceive an authoritative robot as a threat to their status or autonomy.

“A robot’s social behaviours are critical to acceptance, use and trust in this type of distributive technology – by society as a whole,” says Goldie Nejat, a professor of mechanical engineering
who is Saunderson’s supervisor and the other co-author on the paper.

Nejat holds the Canada Research Chair in Robots for Society and is a member of ��ϲ��’s Robotics Institute. She and Saunderson conducted the work with support from AGE-WELL, a national network dedicated to the creation of technologies and services that benefit older adults and caregivers, as well as CIFAR.

“This ground-breaking research provides an understanding of how persuasive robots should be developed and deployed in everyday life, and how they should behave to help different demographics, including our vulnerable populations such as older adults,” she says.

Saunderson says the big take-away for designers of social robots is to position them as collaborative and peer-oriented, rather than dominant and authoritative.

“Our research suggests that robots face additional barriers to successful persuasion than the ones that humans face,” he says. “If they are to take on these new roles in our society, their designers will have to be mindful of that and find ways to create positive experiences through their behaviour.”

��ϲ�� Acceleration Consortium to use AI to develop advanced materials

rahul.kalvapalle — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 20:16:47 +0000

��ϲ�� Acceleration Consortium to use AI to develop advanced materials

rahul.kalvapalle Tue, 04/20/2021 - 16:16

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A collaboration between academia, industry and government, the Acceleration Consortium will draw on AI, robotics, engineering and chemistry to build “self-driving laboratories” capable of developing next-generation materials (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Global Lens

Chemistry

Computer Science

Creative Destruction Lab

Materials Science

The ��ϲ�� is launching a new global consortium dedicated to using artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate the design and discovery of advanced materials that could revolutionize a range of industries – from renewable energy and biomedicine to communication technology.

The Acceleration Consortium will draw on the power of AI, robotics, engineering and chemistry to create so-called “self-driving laboratories” that can help rapidly design next-generation materials crucial to making the technologies of the future more affordable and eco-friendly.

Led by Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a professor in the departments of chemistry and computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science, the consortium is a collaboration betwen academia, industry and government, and comprises top researchers from ��ϲ�� and around the world.

“AI is changing the way we do science,” said Aspuru-Guzik, director of the Acceleration Consortium, Canada 150 Research Chair in Theoretical Chemistry and Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

“The Acceleration Consortium’s self-driving laboratories will revolutionize advanced materials innovation by reducing the time and cost to develop new materials from an average of 20 years and $100 million to as little as one year and $1 million.”

The consortium – a partnership between ��ϲ��’s Faculty of Arts & Science, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and Division of the Vice-President, Research & Innovation – will also work to establish an international network of academic institutions, technology companies and entrepreneurs to lead materials innovation and create a national training program to nurture the next generation of researchers.

Specific initiatives will include workshops, conferences, hackathons, post-doctoral fellowships, a master’s degree program and a laboratory facility to provide training and access to self-driving laboratories for all consortium members.

“Global issues require a global response,” said Christine Allen, ��ϲ��’s associate vice-president and vice-provost, strategic initiatives. “��ϲ�� is proud to launch the Acceleration Consortium to drive materials innovation through collaboration between experts across the university and around the world, including government, industry and emerging companies, and our academic peers.”

The design of advanced materials with superior performance characteristics is seen as vital to driving a range of innovations including clean energy storage, development of sustainable packaging for consumer products, drug discovery, quantum computing and the creation of stronger, lightweight building materials – to name a few applications.

In helping invent these new materials, the consortium intends to play a leading role in addressing an array of challenges in health care, climate change and technology, and to establish ��ϲ�� as a world leader in materials science innovation.

The Chemspeed materials acceleration platform (MAP) in the Aspuru-Guzik laboratory (photo by Johnny Guatto)

��ϲ�� experts involved in the consortium represent a range of disciplines. Christopher Yip, dean of ��ϲ��’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, said the initiative “epitomizes knowledge transfer and collaboration across scholarly expertise.” Melanie Woodin, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science, added the consortium is the latest manifestation of “a legacy of innovation and discovery that has changed the way we think about the world and respond to society’s most pressing social, economic and environmental questions.”

Current Acceleration Consortium partners include Chemspeed, the Vector Institute, CIFAR, Creative Destruction Lab, National Research Council of Canada and Natural Resources Canada, among others. The consortium involves more than 50 top researchers from ��ϲ�� and around the world.

The Acceleration Consortium’s launch follows the Government of Canada’s move to provide nearly $59 million in investments to the National Research Council of Canada and Natural Resources Canada to support the creation of lab space for advanced materials and set up materials acceleration platforms in Mississauga and Hamilton, Ont.

“By creating these new materials, the Acceleration Consortium will help improve the lives of Canadians by addressing challenges in health, climate change, urbanization and economic development,” said Ed Clark, board chair at the Vector Institute and former president and CEO of TD Bank Group.

“The AC’s efforts will also directly support our country’s post-COVID-19 economic recovery by generating commercialization opportunities, onshoring manufacturing, increasing productivity, and even sparking the creation of companies and industries that do not yet exist.”

Four ��ϲ�� computer science researchers named CIFAR AI Chairs

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 17:46:00 +0000

Four ��ϲ�� computer science researchers named CIFAR AI Chairs

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 01/20/2021 - 12:46

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(photo by Daria Perevezentsev)

Matt Hintsa

Topic

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Computer Science

University Health Network

Statistical Sciences

Four ��ϲ�� computer scientists have been named CIFAR AI Chairs in recognition of their innovative artificial intelligence research in areas that benefit society.

Michael Brudno, David Duvenaud, Rahul G. Krishnan, and Richard Zemel of the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science conduct research with a wide impact, from streamlining workflows in clinical care settings to automating the design of chemicals.

Each is also a member of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, launched in 2017 through a partnership between ��ϲ��, federal and provincial governments and industry.

CIFAR AI Chairs are provided with five years of dedicated funding to support their research. The program is a cornerstone of the CIFAR Pan-Canadian AI Strategy to recruit the world’s leading AI researchers to Canada and retain existing talent.

“��ϲ�� is recognized as a home to pioneering AI research, both within Canada and globally. The announcement of four computer science faculty as new CIFAR AI Chairs reinforces this strength, and will propel societally important research to new heights,” says Marsha Chechik, professor and chair of the department of computer science.

The four computer scientists are the latest additions to a group of ��ϲ�� researchers who have been named CIFAR AI Chairs since the inaugural cohort was announced in 2018.

“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,” says François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s minister of innovation, science and industry.

In all, CIFAR named 29 new AI Chairs across Canada. The researchers are based at one of three AI centres across the country: Amii in Edmonton, Mila in Montreal and the Vector Institute in Toronto.

��ϲ��’s new CIFAR AI Chairs at a glance:

Michael Brudno is a professor in the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science. He is also the chief data scientist at University Health Network and the scientific director for HPC4Health, a private computing cloud for Ontario hospitals. His research focuses on improving the ways that computational methods are used to analyze medical data, with the goal of streamlining clinical workflows and enabling faster and better treatments.

David Duvenaud is an assistant professor in the departments of computer science and statistical sciences in the Faculty of Arts & Science. Before joining ��ϲ��, he did post-doctoral research at Harvard University and received his PhD from the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on constructing deep probabilistic models to help predict, explain and design things.

Rahul G. Krishnan will be an assistant professor in the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and the department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine in fall 2021. His research focuses on building novel machine learning algorithms to automate clinically meaningful problems, and to advance our understanding of human health. He recently completed his PhD at MIT and is currently spending a year as a senior researcher at Microsoft Research in New England.

Richard Zemel is a professor in the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science. He also serves as research director at the Vector Institute. His research contributions include foundational work on systems that learn useful representations of data without any supervision; methods for learning to rank and recommend items; and machine learning systems for automatic captioning and answering questions about images.

'An extraordinary legacy': Brenda Andrews lays a foundation for the future at ��ϲ��'s Donnelly Centre

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 20:54:08 +0000

'An extraordinary legacy': Brenda Andrews lays a foundation for the future at ��ϲ��'s Donnelly Centre

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 08/20/2020 - 16:54

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As the founding director of ��ϲ��'s Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, Brenda Andrews helped make the centre a global hub for multidisciplinary research and a training ground for future scientific leaders (photo by Mike Schertzberg)

Jovana Drinjakovic

Topic

Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research

Alumni

Faculty of Medicine

Molecular Genetics

Arts & Science news staff

Praised for her scientific rigour and ingenuity, University Professor Brenda Andrews has many accomplishments to point to during her 15 years as director of the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research at the ��ϲ��.

The centre, housed in a flagship 21st century science research facility, has become a fertile training ground for future scientific leaders. Public outreach has blossomed and Andrews, who stepped down last month after three successive terms as director, has made an impact as a role model and champion for young scientists.

“The decision to begin my PhD studies in Brenda’s lab almost 30 years ago remains one of the most important and positive decisions I have ever made,” says alumna Vivien Measday, now an associate professor at the University of British Columbia.

“Brenda inspired me with her outstanding work ethic, unbelievable efficiency, energy and focus, as well as her ability to promote a collaborative research atmosphere with other labs. She has always been, and will remain, my number one role model for what a female scientist can achieve in Canada.”

Under Andrews’s leadership, the centre has become a global hub for multidisciplinary research, education and innovation in biomedical science. Andrews also helped establish competitive internal fellowships and awards to attract and honour the best graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, many of whom have gone on to have successful careers in industry and as independent investigators in world-leading research institutions.

“The Donnelly Centre today is recognized as a shining beacon of excellence for Canadian health research and Brenda, as founding director, could not be more widely admired and respected,” said ��ϲ�� President Emeritus David Naylor, a former dean of the Faculty of Medicine, during a recent online event that celebrated Andrews’s legacy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“Her qualities of leadership and good judgment have been widely recognized as well as her scientific rigour and ingenuity. It’s an extraordinary legacy.”

Globally recognized for her pioneering research in large-scale genetics and cell biology, Andrews has authored more than 200 scientific articles and reviews and received numerous national and international awards. She is aCompanion of the Order of Canada, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, an international member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and holds the highest ��ϲ�� academic rank of University Professor, among other honours.

Bridging the split between basic and applied sciences, Andrews has long supported efforts to turn the centre’s discoveries into medical advances. She spearheaded the launch of the Accelerator for Donnelly Collaboration, a biotechnology incubator for startups and companies to partner with the centre’s investigators. The accelerator was made possible thanks to a gift from Terrence Donnelly, whose initial gift also helped found the centre.

“The past 15 years have been a remarkable journey,” says Andrews. “These are exciting times for biomedicine – in no small part thanks to the insights and the technological advances made by the centre’s investigators.”

“Together, we have built a vibrant research community and I am tremendously proud of all we have accomplished."

Andrews recruited and fostered a community of top researchers from diverse fields of science at all stages in their careers who are asking some of the biggest questions in biology and inventing technologies to answer them. During her tenure, the centre’s investigators transformed our understanding of the core cellular machinery and how it is linked to disease.

The Donnelly Centre also increased female representation among trainees to 40 per cent, while more than half of the global speakers invited to give seminars at the Centre have been women. Science public outreach also thrived, with the centre hosting educational events aimed at instilling curiosity and love of science among young Canadians, especially girls.

From the outset, Andrews was instrumental in creating the environment for Donnelly Centre researchers to flourish.

With open concept labs that foster collaboration, the centre was envisioned as a modern-day successor to the Banting and Best department of medical research – an institute founded in 1930 by Nobel laureate Frederick Banting and Charles Best on the heels of their insulin discovery. It was the first ��ϲ�� department dedicated solely to research.

At the turn of last century, the late ��ϲ�� Professor Cecil Yip and Professor Emeritus James Friesen recognized the need to draw expertise from different fields of science to fully harness the potential of rapidly evolving genomic technologies in health research.

Andrews, who previously served as chair of Banting and Best and chair of the department of molecular genetics in the Faculty of Medicine, oversaw the integration of the Banting and Best labs with research teams from the Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and Faculty of Arts and Science into the newly founded Donnelly Centre in 2005. She also led the recruitment of top research talent, which has continued in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Andrews completed her doctoral and post-doctoral training at ��ϲ�� and the University of California, San Francisco, respectively, returning to ��ϲ�� as an assistant professor in the department of medical genetics (now molecular genetics), which she also chaired from 1999-2004.

A scientific community builder, Andrews contributes her time and expertise to various organizations at home and abroad. She is the founding editor-in-chief of the journal Genes|Genomes|Genetics, an open access journal of the Genetics Society of America. A member of the governing council of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the primary federal funding agency for medical research, she also served as the inaugural director of the genetic networks program at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

Andrews’s final term as director ended on June 30, 2020. Her long-time collaborator Professor Charles Boone, will serve as interim director until the appointment of new director by the Faculty of Medicine.

��ϲ�� physicists measure the duration of quantum tunneling for the first time

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 14:41:08 +0000

��ϲ�� physicists measure the duration of quantum tunneling for the first time

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 07/23/2020 - 10:41

Cutline

A team of quantum physicists at the ��ϲ�� have recorded the first measurement of the length of time it takes an atom to tunnel through a barrier, clocking it at a mere one millisecond (photo by Chris Thomaidis)

Topic

Breaking Research

Physics

Quantum