Yoshua Bengio

Yoshua Bengio is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts in artificial intelligence and a pioneer in deep learning. Following his studies in Montreal, culminating in a Ph.D. in computer science from McGill University in 1991, Professor Bengio did postdoctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston.

Since 1993, Yoshua Bengio has been a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operational Research at the Université de Montréal. In addition to holding the Canada Research Chair in Statistical Learning Algorithms, he is also the founder and scientific director of Mila, the Quebec Institute of Artificial Intelligence, the world’s largest university-based research group in deep learning. He is also the Scientific Director of IVADO.

His contribution to research is undeniable. In 2018, Yoshua Bengio is the computer scientist who collected the largest number of new citations in the world, thanks to his three reference works and some 500 publications.

His ultimate goal is to understand the principles that lead to intelligence through learning and his research has earned him multiple awards. In 2017, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, in addition to receiving the Prix Marie-Victorin and being named Scientist of the Year by Radio-Canada. In 2018, he was also awarded the 50^th Anniversary Medal by Quebec’s Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie. These honours reflect the profound influence of his work on the evolution of our society.

Concerned about the social impacts of this new technology, he actively contributed to the development of the Montreal Declaration for Responsible Development of Artificial Intelligence.