McGill University | Artificial Intelligence

Key facilities

Centre for Intelligent Machines (CIM) is to excel in the field of intelligent systems, stressing basic research, technology development and education. The members of CIM seek to advance the state of knowledge in Robotics, Design, AI, Computer Vision, Medical Imaging, Systems and Control.

Reasoning and Learning Lab in the School of Computer Science is concerned with the study of probabilistic systems. Current areas of interest include Markov processes, reinforcement learning and computational linguistics. The lab has strong ties with the Quebec Institute of Artificial Intelligence (MILA) created as a collaboration between the Université de Montréal and McGill University, with support from HEC Montréal and Polytechnique Montréal. The new 90,000-sq-ft location, situated in Montreal’s Mile-Ex neighbourhood, will house more than 375 Mila members and 125 researchers and experts from partner companies and institutions. The facility also includes corporate labs, start-up spaces, and a technology transfer centre, which will help startups, SMEs and industrial research projects include AI in their innovations.

Major collaborations

NSERC Canadian Robotics Network (NCRN) is a consortium of leading robotics researchers from across Canada that includes members from universities, industry and government players in an initiative focused on injecting valuable new robotic technologies and software into Canadian industry.

SSHRC Partnership Grant, Geothink.ca: How the geospatial web 2.0 is reshaping government-citizen interactions, led by Dr R Sieber, examines the implications of increasing two-way exchanges of locational information between citizens and governments and the way in which technology shapes, and is shaped by, this exchange.

Development and validation of a web-based platform for environmental omics and toxicology: Drs Jianguo Xia and Niladri Basu are developing eco.OmicsAnalyst, an intuitive, cloud-based tool to support such data analysis and visualization, beginning with 12 key ecological indicator species covering fish, birds, mammals and invertebrates.

Researchers

Tal Arbel, Prof. and the first woman to be made a Full Professor of Electrical Engineering at McGill University. She is interested in the application of AI in healthcare.

James Clark, Prof. and Director of CIM. Research: attention modeling and tracking, augmented reality and video surveillance, generation and analysis of cinematic imagery.

Gregory Dudek, Prof. and James McGill Chair. Research interests is in autonomous navigation, machine learning, human-robot interaction, sensor-based robotics, computer vision.

Doina Precup, Associate Prof. and Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Machine Learning. She leads the DeepMind AI lab in Montreal. Research with emphasis on reinforcement learning, deep learning, and various applications.

Derek Ruths, Associate Prof. and Director of Network Dynamics Lab. He is interested in computation and data analysis to support responsible, evidence-based decision making.

Special programs and work integrated learning initiatives

–AI Summer lab a program launched by members of the Research Innovation Office in the Innovation@McGill collective. As part of the organization’s goal to promote entrepreneurship at McGill, the project provides opportunities for 20 women per program to learn more about artificial intelligence.

-The McGill EngInE, the Faculty of Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship hub, focuses on stimulating technologically-based innovation and entrepreneurship at McGill in collaboration with the McGill Dobson for Entrepreneurship and the Office of Innovation and Partnership.