By Meaghan Thurston
Today, the Rideau Hall Foundation announced the six exceptional Canadian recipients of the Governor General's Innovation Awards. Among those honoured for excellence in innovation and contributions to society is McGill Professor and William Dawson Scholar Joëlle Pineau. Selected for her leadership in the innovative applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning to the field of personalized medicine, Dr. Pineau was nominated for the award by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).
Pineau co-directs the Reasoning and Learning Lab at McGill with Professors Prakash Panangaden, Doina Precup, and Jackie Chi Kit Cheung. Since 2017, she has led the Facebook AI Research lab in Montreal, the first of its kind in Canada.
"Winning the Innovation Award is a huge honour and it is wonderful to see our government recognizing the impact of science. Yet, there is so much more to do in our efforts to apply AI and machine learning innovations to improving the lives of people impacted by severe mobility impairments and diseases like epilepsy."
Speaking from the UK today, Dr. Pineau said that, "winning the Innovation Award is a huge honour and it is wonderful to see our government recognizing the impact of science. Yet, there is so much more to do in our efforts to apply AI and machine learning innovations to improving the lives of people impacted by severe mobility impairments and diseases like epilepsy."
Pineau is renowned as a pioneer in the development of algorithms to handle a special set of mathematical problems, known as partially observable Markov decision processes. She has applied her research to the challenge of developing personalized and robot-assisted health assistants, including the design of an intelligent robotic wheelchair (the Smartwheeler).
