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Research

I am a Professor of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia, a Canada CIFAR AI Chair and Faculty Member at the Vector Institute, and a Senior Research Advisor at DeepMind.

Previously, I was a Research Team Leader at OpenAI. Before that I was a Senior Research Manager and founding member of Uber AI Labs, which was formed after Uber acquired a startup our startup. Prior to Uber, I was the Loy and Edith Harris Associate Professor in Computer Science at the University of Wyoming.

I conduct research in deep learning, including deep reinforcement learning. I improve our understanding of deep neural networks, harness them in novel applications (such as helping biologists conserve and better understand wildlife), and advance deep reinforcement learning, especially improving its ability to intelligently explore.

I have long been interested in creating open-ended algorithms and AI-generating algorithms, wherein AI systems could learn and truly innovate without end (as natural evolution and human culture do). To produce such algorithms, I study open questions in evolutionary biology regarding how intelligence evolved and try to harness those discoveries to improve our ability to produce more complex, intelligent artificial intelligence. Such work has led my colleagues and I to develop quality-diversity algorithms, which like nature do not seek to produce a single, best solution, but instead produce a vast diversity of high-quality entities.

I have also worked on robotics, evolutionary algorithms, and studying open questions in evolutionary biology with digital simulations of evolving systems.