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Cheriton School of Computer Science Professor  and her international colleagues have published a commentary in Nature about the need for cooperative artificial intelligence — beneficial AI with social understanding.

AI assistants and recommendation algorithms interact with billions of people every day, yet they have little understanding of humans. Professor Larson and her colleagues argue that AI needs social understanding and cooperative intelligence to integrate beneficially into society.

Eliciting curiosity — the intrinsic desire to explore and to find new information — enhances learning, promotes information-seeking and improves memory. Understanding how to elicit and maintain curiosity in students could help us design educational robots that stimulate interest, engagement and a quest for knowledge.

A team including four ��ݮ��Ƶ students came in first place in the Challenge stream of this year’s competition.

The winning team, Team Golden Marauders, consisted of ��ݮ��Ƶ Double Degree students Miraal Kabir, Alex Shehdula, Daria Margarit, and Martin Turuta. The team also included Hanna Rao from McMaster University and Kiana Dhindsa from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Dr. Zack Cramer, a Lecturer in the Mathematics Undergraduate Group within the Faculty of Mathematics, receives the . This award is presented yearly by the ��ݮ��Ƶ Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA) to professors who have demonstrated outstanding contributions to undergraduate student learning.

“Imagine being out on a lake on a windy day and you’re getting pushed around by waves,” says Marek Stastna, an oceanographer and professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics. “What you may not realize is that in the interior of the ocean, there are waves one hundred times that size. My passion is to create mathematical models of that type of movement.”

Each year, the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ recognizes employees by celebrating their milestones of distinguished service to the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ community. 

Staff and faculty celebrating 5 to 50 years of service were honoured across a series of virtual events to recognize their contributions and tireless work that have impacted the success of the university. Join in the celebration and view messages of congratulations on the .

When Chris Salahub learned he could explore his passion for data in a dedicated math faculty at ��ݮ��Ƶ, the high schooler had an easy decision to make. Just two years after graduation, when he was on the verge of finishing a master’s degree in Switzerland, he decided to return for a second degree. “About halfway through my master’s, I realized I wanted to do a PhD,” he remembered. “It just made sense to go back to ��ݮ��Ƶ because I had discovered such a supportive community there.”

Like many of her peers, Paige McDougall entered the Faculty of Mathematics with more enthusiasm than direction. “I knew early on that math was a strong subject for me, but I had no idea where I would actually excel,” she acknowledged. With every new class and co-op term, she has found her way through the fog.

“Gaining broad technical skills in artificial intelligence and data science isn’t actually that challenging,” recognized Jaskirat Bhatia. “You can find countless tutorials on Youtube that will teach you the basics. But they can’t tell you which tools to apply to which problems. They can’t guide your learning in any way.” That’s where the Master of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (MDSAI) comes in. 

Like many first-generation Canadians, Zahra Hirani (BMath’94) viewed higher education as a likely path to success after a rocky beginning. Born in Uganda to a family of Asian heritage, she and her parents and sister were forced to flee to Canada as refugees in 1974. “Growing up in Ottawa, it was really tough for us to get settled,” she remembered. Her parents emphasized education and she opted to study accounting at the ��ݮ��Ƶ Faculty of Mathematics, in large part because its co-op program would provide financial support in addition to relevant work experience.