AI Methods for Scientific Impact

The Artificial Intelligence Methods for Scientific Impact (AIM-SI) cluster: a new UBC Science interdisciplinary cluster will help fuel artificial intelligence innovation and research excellence over the next two years.

Tenure Track Positions:

As of 2024 UBC has completed its AIM-SI hiring as per the President’s Academic Excellence Initiative. We have hired 6 new assistant professors in total: 2 in Statistics (Geoff Pleiss started in 2023; Saifuddin Syed to start in 2025), 1 in Mathematics (Ahmet Alacaoglu to start in 2024), and 3 in Computer Science (Peter West to start in 2025; Peter Yichen Chen (funded entirely by CS) to start in 2025; Serena Wang to start in 2026). 
 

The Creation of AIM-SI:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fueling profound innovation across science, the economy, and society, with UBC students and faculty at the forefront of many advancements.

AIM-SI will significantly increase UBC’s teaching and research capacity in AI, thereby meeting a major need: over the past several years, the university has faced unprecedented demand for AI teaching and AI research collaborations across all scientific disciplines. Better meeting this demand will lead to more scientific breakthroughs across the university and produce a much larger pool of highly-qualified graduates for Vancouver’s red-hot tech sector.

At the core of the cluster will be five new assistant professors across the Departments of Computer Science (2 faculty members), Statistics (2 faculty members) and Mathematics (1 faculty member). The new hires for the cluster are funded as part of the President’s Academic Excellence Initiative (PAEI), which is driving the largest recruitment of faculty in UBC history. The cluster also draws together 18 existing UBC faculty members spanning Computer Science, Statistics, Math, and Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences--including UBC’s existing six Canada CIFAR AI chairs. Increasing diversity in AI Methods research and teaching at UBC is another key goal of the cluster, adding to existing momentum for diversifying our AI faculty.
 

“Over the past several years, the university has faced unprecedented demand for AI teaching and AI research collaborations across all scientific disciplines. Better meeting this demand will lead to more scientific breakthroughs across the university and produce a much larger pool of highly-qualified graduates for Vancouver’s red-hot tech sector.”
 

AIM-SI Vision:

• Meet the immediate demand for teaching, supervision, and collaboration in AI at UBC
• AI is currently transitioning from being a specialization to a field in its own right; AIM-SI intends to put UBC's AI offerings on a firm, interdisciplinary foundation
• Increase UBC's strength in AI methods beyond the "steady state" we have maintained over the past fifteen years, making us more comparable to other top institutions both in Canada and worldwide, which have focused on rapidly growing their AI headcounts
• Help fuel artificial intelligence innovation and research excellence through the hire of interdisciplinary faculty

Artificial Intelligence at UBC:

AIM-SI is organized as a cluster of faculty within CAIDA, UBC’s Centre for Artificial Intelligence Decision-making and Action. The cluster’s Director is Kevin Leyton-Brown (CS); its Steering Committee additionally consists of Alexandre Bouchard-Côté (Stats), Cristina Conati (CS), Michiel van de Panne (CS) and Ozgur Yilmaz (Math).

As UBC's interdisciplinary AI research organization, CAIDA brings together over 100 professors and their research associates, spanning 27 departments and institutes within UBC. The Centre's focus is the development, analysis, and application of AI systems for decision-making and action, enabled by core AI technologies such as machine learning and automated reasoning. CAIDA research spans eleven focus areas, ranging from fundamental to applied. To complement existing research collaborations at UBC, CAIDA organizes events such as seminar series (divided into streams on AI Methods, Applications, and Ethics); job fairs; industry outreach days; and open houses. CAIDA also represents UBC’s AI community in its relationships with CIFAR, Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster, and other provincial, national, and international AI organizations.

AIM-SI Collaborators:

UBC Vancouver is located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. The land it is situated on has always been a place of learning for the Musqueam, who for millennia have passed on their culture, history, and traditions from one generation to the next on this site.