The RBC Borealis 2021-2022 Fellowships: Inspiring Canada’s AI Research Talent

RBC Borealis is proud to announce this year’s RBC Borealis Fellowship recipients. With the support and guidance of Canada’s top researchers and AI institutes, the RBC Borealis Fellowships encourage emerging AI and Machine Learning talent at Canadian universities to advance the field to the benefit of humankind.

Canada continues to stand tall as a global AI leader. According to the Tortoise Intelligence Global AI Index, Canada ranks fourth in terms of AI talent globally. Initiatives like the RBC Borealis Fellowship aim to help attract new AI talent to Canadian research institutes and – more importantly – keep AI talent in Canada.

“There is a global competition for AI talent underway. Given the critical and growing role that AI and Machine Learning play in our societies and our economies, it is vital that Canada continue to attract and retain the world’s best AI and ML research talent. RBC Borealis is proud to provide opportunities for talent to develop and thrive in the Canadian AI ecosystem,” noted Dr. Foteini Agrafioti, Head of RBC Borealis.

The 2022 RBC Borealis Fellowships have been awarded to talented researchers from various Canadian universities and provinces. Supported by leading Canadian faculty, including Dr. Doina Precup at McGill University, Dr. Aaron Courville and Dr. Yoshua Bengio at University of Montreal, Dr. Ghassan Hamarneh at Simon Fraser University and Dr. Raquel Urtasun at the University of Toronto, these ten RBC Borealis Fellows will focus on a range of research areas that include safe Reinforcement Learning and clinical user-centered explainable AI for medical image analysis.

“It’s great to see RBC Borealis supporting the next generation of AI researchers. I’m looking forward to working alongside new talent as they bring a fresh perspective to the industry. Congratulations to this year’s Fellowship honorees.” said Dr. Raquel Urtasun, Founder & CEO at Waabi, Professor at University of Toronto and Faculty Advisor for two RBC Borealis Fellows,”

said Dr. Raquel Urtasun, Founder & CEO at Waabi, Professor at University of Toronto/Vector Institute and Faculty Advisor for two RBC Borealis Fellows.

The RBC Borealis 2022 Fellowships have been awarded to:

Faculty: Dr. Doina Precup and Dr. Jakob Foerster
RBC Borealis 2022 Fellow: Andrei Lupu
Research topic: Collaborative multi-agent reinforcement learning and human-AI coordination

Faculty: Dr. Doina Precup and Dr. Pierre-Luc Bacon
RBC Borealis 2022 Fellow: Arushi Jain
Research topic: Safe Reinforcement Learning

Faculty: Dr. Aaron Courville and Dr. Yoshua Bengio
RBC Borealis 2022 Fellow: Dinghuai Zhang
Research topic: Probabilistic inference, exploration with structure and distribution shift

Faculty: Dr. Aaron Courville and Dr. Marc Bellemare
RBC Borealis 2022 Fellow: Max Schwarzer
Research topic: Data-Efficient Reinforcement Learning

Faculty: Dr. Gauthier Gidel
RBC Borealis 2022 Fellow: Andjela Mladenovic
Research topic: Rethinking Online Algorithms in the Age of Machine Learning

Faculty: Dr. Ghassan Hamarneh and Dr. Xiaoxiao Li
RBC Borealis 2022 Fellow: Weina Jin
Research topic: Clinical user-centered explainable AI for medical image analysis

Faculty: Dr. Raquel Urtasun
RBC Borealis 2022 Fellow: Sergio Casas Romero
Research topic: End-to-end interpretable navigation for autonomous agents

Faculty: Dr. Raquel Urtasun
RBC Borealis 2022 Fellow: Yuwen Xiong
Research topic: Practical scene understanding in the wild

Faculty: Dr. Amir-Massoud Farahmand
RBC Borealis 2022 Fellow: Amin Rakhsha
Research topic: Reinforcement Learning

Faculty: Dr. Jimmy Ba and Dr. Murat A. Erdogdu
RBC Borealis 2022 Fellow: Yi (Denny) Wu
Research topic: Deep learning theory, high-dimensional statistics

“At RBC Borealis, we understand that Canada’s AI and ML research ecosystem depends on a strong pipeline of incredible talent. The RBC Borealis Fellowships – alongside RBC Borealis programs like Let’s Solve it, the RBC Borealis Internships and other RBC Borealis student programs – are part of our ongoing commitment to grow and develop Canada’s thriving AI and ML ecosystems,” added Dr. Eirene Seiradaki, Director of Research Partnerships at RBC Borealis.