Dr. Garth Gibson

President & CEO, Vector Institute

Opening Remarks

As a leader in research, advanced education and commercial collaboration, Dr. Garth Gibson bridges the worlds of academia and business… Read more

MPP Hon. Jill Dunlop

Minister of Colleges and Universities

Jill Dunlop has been the Member of Provincial Parliament for Simcoe North since 2018. Born and raised in the Town of Coldwater in Simcoe North, Jill witnessed the importance of  community and small local businesses early on, as her grandparents owned and operated the still thriving local Dunlop Plumbing, and her parents were actively engaged community members. Jill was also exposed to politics early on by both of her parents. Her mother, Jane Dunlop is a current Councillor and the Deputy Mayor of the Township of Severn. Her father is the former MPP and a predecessor representative of Simcoe North.

Prior to being elected, Jill attended Western University, and later joined the faculty of Georgian College. She is also the mother of three postsecondary aged daughters, all giving her unique insights into the world of postsecondary education. In 2019, Jill was appointed as the Associate Minister of Children and Women’s Issues in the Ministry of Children, Community, and Social Services. Most recently, in 2021 Jill was appointed as the new Minister of Colleges and Universities and has spent the summer meeting and touring the province visiting Ontario’s world-class postsecondary institutions.

Dr. Graham Taylor

Interim Research Director, Vector Institute; Academic Director, Next AI

Graham Taylor is a Professor of Engineering at the University of Guelph, a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar… Read more

Dr. Sanja Fidler

Faculty Member & Co-Founder, Vector Institute; Senior Director of AI, NVIDIA

Sanja Fidler is an Assistant Professor at University of Toronto. Prior to coming to Toronto, in 2012/2013, she was a Research Assistant Professor at Toyota Technological Institute… Read more

Dr. Sajjad Ghaemi

Research Officer, National Research Council Canada

Sajjad Ghaemi did his Ph.D research at Polytechnique Montréal that was focused on identifying structures in large datasets where the labels were completely unknown with applications to Public Transport and Bioinformatics. Prior to joining the NRC, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, School of Medicine where he developed generalized linear models for learning across multiple high‑throughput biological assays that were successfully implemented for a variety of bioinformatics projects. At the NRC‑Fields Mathematical Sciences Collaboration Centre, he is deeply inspired by a wide range of research topics, such as theoretical design of algorithms to develop applied methodologies for miscellaneous cutting‑edge, and high‑tech problems in science and industry pivoting on machine learning in conjunction with artificial intelligence and applied mathematics.

Dr. Anne Martel

Senior Scientist, Sunnybrook Research Institute; Professor, University of Toronto; Faculty Affiliate, Vector Institute

Anne Martel is a Professor in Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto, a Senior Scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute, and a Vector Faculty Affiliate. Her research program, funded by CIHR, NSERC, NIH and the Canadian Cancer Society, is focused on medical image and digital pathology analysis, particularly on applications of machine learning for segmentation, diagnosis, and prediction/prognosis. In 2006 she co-founded Pathcore, a software company developing complete workflow solutions for digital pathology. Dr Martel is an active member of the medical image analysis community and is a fellow of the MICCAI Society which represents engineers and computer scientists working in this field.  She has served as board member of MICCAI and as an Associate Editor of IEEE Trans. Medical Imaging.

Jianing Sun

Machine Learning Scientist, Layer 6 AI

Jianing works as a machine learning scientist at Layer6 AI, where her applied work centrals on financial use-cases and research work focuses on recommender systems. Prior joining Layer6, she worked as a machine learning engineer at Huawei Montreal Research Center. She obtained a master’s degree from the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at McGill University in 2019.  

Giuseppe Castiglione

Machine Learning Researcher, Borealis AI

Giuseppe Castiglione is a Machine Learning Researcher at Borealis AI focusing on Representation Learning, AI Safety, and Combinatorial Optimization.  Giuseppe’s research interests lie in uncovering the strategies models use to cheat on their training objectives, and designing new algorithms to prevent this.  Applications of his research include designing models which are more fair, interpretable, adversarially robust, and which require less data to train.  Before joining with Borealis, he was a lead researcher at Kiwi Wearables, where he focused on model compression for embedded devices.  He completed a Bachelor of Applied Science in Engineering Physics at the University of Toronto.