Patrick M. Pilarski

Patrick M. Pilarski

Fellow, Canada CIFAR AI Chair & Board of Directors

Academic Affiliations

Associate Professor – University of Alberta (Medicine); Adjunct Associate Professor – University of Alberta (Rehabilitation Medicine); Adjunct Associate Professor – University of Alberta (Computing Science); Canada Research Chair in Machine Intelligence for Rehabilitation – University of Alberta; Principal Investigator – Reinforcement Learning & Artificial Intelligence Lab (University of Alberta); Principal Investigator – BLINC Lab (University of Alberta); Principal Investigator – SMART Network (University of Alberta)

Industry and Research Affiliations

Research Affiliate – Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital

Areas of Expertise

Artificial intelligence; machine learning; reinforcement learning; bioinformatics; medical informatics; human-machine interaction; rehabilitation medicine; robotics; online learning; assistive robotics; precision health

Patrick’s research interests include reinforcement learning, real-time machine learning, human-machine interaction, rehabilitation technology, and assistive robotics.

Dr. Patrick M. Pilarski is a Canada CIFAR Artificial Intelligence Chair, past Canada Research Chair in Machine Intelligence for Rehabilitation, and an Associate Professor in the Division of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Department of Medicine, University of Alberta.

In 2017, Dr. Pilarski co-founded DeepMind's first international research office, located in Edmonton, Alberta, where he served as office co-lead and a Senior Staff Research Scientist until 2023. He is a Fellow and Board of Directors member with the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii), co-leads the Bionic Limbs for Improved Natural Control (BLINC) Laboratory, and is a principal investigator with the Reinforcement Learning and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (RLAI) and the Sensory Motor Adaptive Rehabilitation Technology (SMART) Network at the University of Alberta.

Dr. Pilarski received the B.ASc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of British Columbia in 2004, the Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Alberta in 2009, and completed his postdoctoral training in computing science with Dr. Richard S. Sutton at the University of Alberta. Dr. Pilarski's research interests include reinforcement learning and decision making, artificial intelligence, real-time machine learning, human-machine interaction, intelligence amplification, rehabilitation technology, and assistive robotics. He leads the Amii Adaptive Prosthetics Program—an interdisciplinary initiative focused on creating intelligent artificial limbs to restore and extend abilities for people with amputations. As part of this research, Dr. Pilarski has developed and made prominent machine learning techniques for continual sensorimotor control and prediction learning on prosthetic devices. These include some of the first published approaches to ongoing user training of upper-limb prosthesis control systems via reinforcement learning, and he pioneered the use of general value functions in prediction learning to continually adapt myoelectric control interfaces in real time.

Dr. Pilarski's research programme continues to explore human-device interaction and communication, long-term co-adaptation and joint action between agents, patient-specific device optimization, and constructivism in tightly coupled human-machine interfaces. He has also created techniques for rapid cancer and pathogen screening through work on biomedical pattern recognition, robotic micro-manipulation of medical samples, and hand-held diagnostic devices.

Dr. Pilarski is the award-winning author or co-author of more than 120 peer-reviewed articles, a Senior Member of the IEEE, and has been supported by provincial, national, and international research grants.