Amii is thrilled to welcome three new Canada CIFAR AI Chairs Abby Azari (University of Alberta), Dieter Büchler (University of Alberta), Mohamed Abdalla (University of Alberta). The Canada CIFAR AI Chair program is a key part of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy that enables leading researchers to continue to pursue impactful research and advance fundamental AI science. In addition to the new Chairs, Amii congratulates current Amii Fellows Rupam Mahmood, Lili Mou, Nathan Sturtevant, Csaba Szepsvari and Adam White on their renewals. 

“Congratulations to Abby, Dieter and Mohamed on their recent Canada CIFAR AI Chair designations alongside our esteemed renewed Chairs,” says Cam Linke, Amii CEO. "The continued support of the CIFAR AI Chair program empowers all of these researchers to push the boundaries of AI science in crucial fields like robotics, planetary science, and clinical informatics, among others. Their collective efforts will not only elevate Amii's standing as a leader but also solidify Canada's global prominence in AI.”

Learn more about the newly designated Canada CIFAR Chairs at Amii. 

Abby Azari 

Abby is an Assistant Professor jointly appointed in the departments of Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Alberta. Her research group aims to develop the use of machine intelligence for scientific discovery in planetary science and space physics. Abby is also a Science Team Member of the NASA MAVEN mission to Mars where she leads machine learning research relevant to studying Mars’ space environment.

Dieter Büchler

Dieter is an Assistant Professor in the Computing Science department at the University of Alberta. Dieter’s mission is to achieve human performance in athletic, rapidly changing, uncertain, and high-dimensional tasks with physical robots. His research group develops learning approaches for complex systems, like soft and muscular robots, which can excel in these demanding domains. The group also studies how the robotic body influences the acquisition of robotic skills.

Mohamed Abdalla 

Mohamed is an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Alberta and has previously worked with multiple hospitals and healthcare systems across Canada and internationally. His research interests lie at the intersection of natural language processing, clinical informatics, and AI ethics. He is specifically interested in identifying and addressing gaps in the translation of academic AI research to real-world clinical deployments.