Happy New Year!

We’re only a month into 2025, and already there’s so much great stuff happening at Amii to tell you about.

In the latest episode of our Approximately Correct podcast, Amii Fellow and Canada CIFAR AI Chair Patrick Pilarski shares how the team at the BLINC Lab is using AI to build better prosthetic limbs. Hearing Patrick discuss how closely his team works with people with limb differences—and how essential this collaborative approach is to creating devices that truly work for people—is a meaningful reminder of the importance of human-centred AI research.

We also want to congratulate Amii Fellow and Canada CIFAR AI Chair Russ Greiner, who recently co-authored a paper published in the prestigious CELL journal. Russ used machine learning to help researchers study how reintroducing helpful bacteria into people’s digestive systems could improve their health. This is a great example of how interdisciplinary collaboration and AI can tackle challenges in other fields — and we’re proud to see it recognized in such a big way.

On the topic of groundbreaking interdisciplinary research, we’re excited to welcome three new researchers to Amii.

Abby Azari uses machine learning to understand current and previous planetary space environments. She is also a member of NASA’s MAVEN mission science team.
Dieter Büchler focuses on developing ML methods, particularly reinforcement learning, for soft muscular systems in robots to achieve human-level performance in complex tasks.
Frank Wood (UBC) is also a Canada CIFAR AI Chair. His work advances Bayesian inference and the development of state-of-the-art probabilistic models.

I can’t wait to see what they — and the rest of our researchers — accomplish this year.

Cheers to another year of pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with AI,

Cam

P.S. Don’t miss your chance to save $150 on your conference pass for Upper Bound 2025. The pre-sale ends this Friday.

January Highlights

Community & Industry Updates:

You've still got time to catch our Upper Bound Pre-Sale! You can save $150 on tickets to an AI conference like no other, May 20-23, 2025. But you have to hurry — the pre-sale ends Jan. 31. Get your tickets now!
Welcome to two new members of the Amii team: Rich Yee is our new Chief Financial Officer, and Alyssa Lefaivre Škopac joins us as our new Director of AI Trust & Safety.
Congrats to Amii Fellow and Canada CIFAR AI Chair Matthew Guzdial for being named the 2025 Science Fellow at the Edmonton Space & Science Foundation.

Research Updates:
- On the latest episode of Approximately Correct, Amii Fellow & Canada CIFAR AI Chair Patrick Pilarski shares his lab’s innovative approach to bionic limb research, and how they make their test pilots a vital part of the research team.

Congrats to Amii Fellow & Canada CIFAR AI Chair Russell Greiner for being a co-author on a paper published in the prestigious journal Cell last week. He used his AI expertise to help a University of Alberta team investigate the health benefits of reintroducing helpful bacteria into the digestive systems of people.
Amii Fellow Randy Goebel was asked by Newsweek "Will AI Replace Therapists?" Check out his thoughts on how AI can be used to improve mental health care.

Training Updates:

ML Explorations: Get your startup AI-ready. Apply by: Feb. 23
ML Foundations 1: Learn the basics of AI. Next class: Feb. 6
ML Foundations 2: Build on the basics. Next class: Feb. 13
AI Ethics 1: Learn the principles of AI governance. Next class: Feb. 20
AI Ethics 2: Turn principles into practice. Next class: Next class: March 20

Career Opportunities

Amii Staff Positions:

Amii Staff Positions:
- Associate Machine Learning Educator (Startup Team): Help organizations and individuals grow their AI literacy.
- Marketing Manager (Marketing & Communications Team): Build and implement creative multi-channel campaigns and use data to refine results.
- K-12 Education Advisor (Training Team): Build and socialize artificial intelligence and machine learning assets that align with various provincial curriculum guidelines.
- Data Analyst (Revenue Team): Leverage advanced data processing and management skills to enable proactive, data-driven decision-making across business development and marketing initiatives.
- Machine Learning Engineer (Engineering & Performance Team): Manage infrastructure, optimize AI workflows, develop training materials, and contribute to technical development.
- Director of Engineering (Engineering & Performance Team): Help our teams to deliver cutting-edge AI solutions.
- Interested in working at Amii? Introduce yourself by submitting your resume to Amii anytime!
Amii Academic Positions:
- AI + Diagnostic Imaging: Tenure Track Assistant or Associate Professor
- AI + Psychiatry: Postdoctoral Fellow (multiple)
- AI + Robotics: Tenure Track Assistant Professor
- AI + Biomedical Engineering: Postdoctoral Fellow (multiple)
- AI + Biomedical Engineering: PhD Students (multiple)
- Postdoctoral Fellow - Machine Learning in Medicine (Russ Greiner)
- Postdoctoral Fellow - Machine Learning in Foundations of Robust and Trustworthy Machine Learning (Nidhi Hedge)
- Postdoctoral Fellow - Machine Learning in Strategic Classification and Causal Models (Nidhi Hedge)
- Postdoctoral Fellow - Machine Malfunction Prediction and Machine Adaptation using Machine Learning (Osmar Zaiane)