Dr. Audrey Durand
Laval University
Dr. Durand (Canada CIFAR AI Chair) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at Université Laval (Québec City, Canada). She is an associate academic member of Mila – Quebec AI Institute and she is the leader of the Methods of Artificial Intelligence and Data Processing Axis of the Institute for Intelligence and Data at U. Laval. She is also member of the Union Neurosciences et Intelligence Artificielle Québec (UNIQUE), the CERVO Brain Research Center, the Centre de Recherche en Donnée Massives (CRDM), and the Centre de Recherche en Vision et Intelligence Machine (CeRVIM). She is known for her work in reinforcement learning and bandit algorithms, both theoretical and applied, in addition to machine learning (in general) deployed on health-related data. She has developed new optimal algorithms with convergence guarantees in a variety of bandit. She has used such algorithms for optimizing treatment allocations in mouse models with cancer and for tuning super-resolution imaging parameters, helping researchers in neuroscience acquiring images of neurons to improve the understanding of the human brain. She is also involved in various collaboration to leverage machine learning methods for conducting platform trials, predicting evolution of health indicators on patients undergoing chemotherapy, finding associations between polypharmacy and health outcomes, and optimizing the growth of plants.