Rahul Kalvapalle

U of T’s Geoffrey Hinton receives Nobel medal, diploma at Stockholm ceremony

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 20:05:05 +0000

U of T’s Geoffrey Hinton receives Nobel medal, diploma at Stockholm ceremony

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 12/10/2024 - 15:05

Cutline

U of T University Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton receives his Nobel Prize in Physics from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden during the Nobel Prize award ceremony in Stockholm (photo by Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency/AFP/Getty Images)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Global Lens

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science

Faculty of Arts & Science

Geoffrey Hinton

Nobel Prize

Subheadline

“I think we all feel an enormous amount of pride in the fact that [U of T] is one of the places where modern machine learning was really born - in large part due to Geoff Hinton”

The University of Toronto’s Geoffrey Hinton officially accepted his Nobel Prize in Physics during a formal ceremony at Stockholm Concert Hall that included orchestra music, an opera singer and a stage lined with bouquets of flowers.

Wearing white tie and tails, Hinton strode across the dark blue stage emblazoned with the words “The Nobel Prize” to receive his Nobel medal and diploma from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. Then, as the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra sounded a few triumphant notes, he bowed to the Swedish royal family, the audience and returned to his seat at the side of the stage.

Geoffrey Hinton looks out over the audience after King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden presented him with his award (photo by Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency/AFP/Getty Images)

And just like that, decades of scholarly endeavour in artificial intelligence (AI) – which began on the fringe of the AI research community and is now poised to forever change modern life – culminated in the U of T University Professor emeritus of computer science known as the “godfather of AI” receiving humanity’s most prestigious award for scientific achievement.

Hinton shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics with John J. Hopfield of Princeton University, who made a similar journey inside the concert hall a few moments earlier. The pair were awarded the prize for discoveries and inventions that enabled machine learning with artificial neural networks, laying the groundwork for today’s AI boom.

“[Geoffrey Hinton] pioneered the efforts to establish deep and dense neural networks,” said Ellen Moons, the chair of the Nobel physics committee, during her introductory remarks. “Such networks are effective in sorting and interpreting large amounts of data and self-improve based on the accuracy of the result.

“Today, artificial neural networks are powerful tools in research fields spanning physics, chemistry and medicine, as well as in daily life.”

In fact, the three winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry – who were seated to Hinton’s left – drew heavily on AI for their work in predicting protein structures and computational design of proteins.

U of T President Meric Gertler snapped this photo of the Nobel laureates from his seat in the concert hall (photo by Meric Gertler)

Back in Toronto, members of the U of T community gathered at watch parties on all three campuses to take in the livestream of the awards ceremony – a historic moment for the university.

On the St. George campus, more than one hundred gathered to watch and cheer in the main lobby of the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus – home to U of T’s Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, where Hinton serves as an advisory board member and chief scientific adviser, respectively.

Among the gathered audience was Michael Guerzhoy, an assistant professor, teaching stream, of engineering science and mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering who took Hinton’s course on neural networks and machine learning in 2005 – before going on to teach the same course himself several years later.

“I think we all feel an enormous amount of pride in the fact that this is one of the places where modern machine learning was really born, in large part due to Geoff Hinton,” Guerzhoy said. “I think a lot of us owe a personal debt of gratitude to him.”

U of T community members gather in the lobby of the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus to watch the ceremony (photo by Matt Hintsa)

Fourth-year undergraduate student James Wang said he was “in awe” as he watched Hinton receive his Nobel Prize.

“It makes you feel inspired. You want to be like him, you want to attain the highest level of achievement that anybody can achieve – and not just to do it for your sake, but also for the academic community at large,” Wang said.

There were similar expressions of pride and jubilation at U of T Mississauga, where community members congregated to watch the livestream in the atrium of the Communication Culture & Technology Building, and at U of T Scarborough, where a watch party was organized in the Meeting Place.

As per tradition, the awarding of the Nobel Prize medal and diploma took place on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel who, in his 1885 will, bequeathed his fortune to create the award.

Attendees at U of T Scarborough's Nobel watch party hold up signs (photo by Sobica Vinayagamoorthy)

The gold medal for the Nobel Prize in Physics depicts nature in the form of a goddess resembling Isis, her face covered by a veil held up by the Genius of Science. Inscribed are the Latin words, “Inventas vitam iuvat excoluisse per artes,”which are translated to: “It is beneficial to have improved (human) life through discovered arts.”

The Nobel diploma is crafted on handmade paper and bound in a dark blue leather cover.

The Nobel Prize diploma features a unique work of art, with the design decided by the prize-awarding bodies (© Nobel Prize Outreach. Photo: Dan Lepp Artist: Lars Eje Larsson Calligrapher: Marie A. Györi Book binder: Leonard Gustafssons Bokbinderi AB )

Later in the evening, Hinton joined his fellow Nobel laureates, their families, friends and dignitaries for a banquet at Stockholm City Hall.

In an interview with Swedish national broadcaster SVT on the sidelines of the event, Hinton said it was “very exciting but also very exhausting” to take part in the day’s Nobel events.

Reflecting on his upbringing and career, Hinton said his school years – raised as an atheist who went to a Christian school – helped prepare him for his early years as a cognitive scientist working in the then-peripheral area of artificial intelligence.

“From a young age, I was surrounded at school, everybody else had a different opinion and I thought they were wrong – that was very useful when I was studying neural nets,” Hinton said.

“For many, many years, there were only a few of us who believed in neural nets. Everybody else said this was a ridiculous thing to study. And it turned out we were right.”

– with files from Adam Elliot Segal

U of T ranked world’s most sustainable university for second year in a row

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 16:12:41 +0000

U of T ranked world’s most sustainable university for second year in a row

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 12/10/2024 - 11:12

Cutline

(photo by Don Campbell)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Global Lens

Climate Positive Campus

Climate Positive Energy

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

Sustainable Development Goals

Global

Meric Gertler

QS World University Rankings

Subheadline

The 2025 edition of the QS World University Rankings: Sustainability ranked U of T first out of more than 1,700 institutions across 95 countries

The University of Toronto has been ranked the most sustainable university in the world for the second consecutive year.

The 2025 edition of the QS World University Rankings: Sustainability, released this week by London-based Quacquarelli Symonds, placed U of T first overall out of more than 1,700 institutions across 95 countries.

The closely watched ranking evaluates post-secondary institutions for their environmental impact, social impact and governance.

“On behalf of the University of Toronto, I am thrilled that our university is once again ranked first in the world in the QS Sustainability Rankings,” said U of T President Meric Gertler. “The U of T community is profoundly committed to the advancement of sustainability as one of the most urgent challenges of our time.

“This year’s ranking confirms our resolve to help lead the way to a sustainable future.”

First launched in 2022, the ranking assesses universities based on QS World University Rankings data, including reputation surveys and research output related to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. It also looks at institutional policies, operational data, alumni impact and national data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and World Bank.

To determine environmental impact, the ranking evaluates environmental education, research and sustainability. For social impact, it examines employability and outcomes, equality, health and well-being, impact of education and knowledge exchange. And for governance, the ranking looks at indicators such as student representation and transparent financial reporting.

U of T performed particularly well in the social impact category this year, moving up three spots to first globally. It also ranked fifth in the world for environmental impact and tied for 23^rd in governance.

U of T’s performance led a robust showing by Canadian universities. The University of British Columbia shared fifth spot with University College London, making Canada the only country to have two universities in the top five. Two other Canadian universities placed in the top 50: McGill University (15^th) and Western University (30^th).

The QS sustainability ranking comes as U of T forges ahead with a host of climate-focused initiatives on its own campuses including: Project Leap, a $138-million infrastructure project that will cut emissions on the St. George campus in half by 2027; Project SHIFT, a U of T Mississauga initiative to speed up the transition from natural gas to electricity; and a combination of new climate-responsible constructions and energy retrofits to older buildings at U of T Scarborough.

Spurred by these and other efforts, the university’s three campuses last year made a landmark commitment to reduce more greenhouse gases than they emit in the coming years. And U of T continues to make progress on its pledge to divest from fossil fuel investments in its endowment fund.

At the same time, U of T is working to enhance Canada’s green energy sector through projects like the Grid Modernization Centre, a state-of-the-art facility led by Climate Positive Energy, an institutional strategic initiative, that will serve as a hub for testing, development and commercialization.

U of T is also playing a leadership role in sustainability by engaging with regional, national and international partners. For example, the university acted as a founding member of the City of Toronto’s Green Will Initiative, collaborated with the Urban Climate Action Project to help implement the city’s TransformTO climate action strategy and contributed to the Toronto Region Board of Trade’s Banking on Green playbook, which helps Ontario organizations fund green retrofit projects.

Globally, U of T has convened networks aimed at mobilizing multi-sector partnerships, including the U7+ Alliance of World Universities, the University Climate Change Coalition (UC3) and the International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN). U of T’s sustainability leaders have also been asked to share knowledge and experiences with other universities in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Germany and other countries.

Most important, U of T is actively creating a new generation of sustainability leaders. Supported by the President’s Advisory Committee on the Environment, Climate Change, and Sustainability (CECCS), which recently created a new student leadership subcommittee, more than 2,000 undergraduate courses in 2024-25 now have a sustainability orientation.

Students also have the option of exploring sustainability from various lenses through the Sustainability Pathways program, or to contribute to projects on- and off-campus via the Campus as a Living Lab and Community-Engaged Learning programs.

Overall, U of T continues to be the highest-ranked Canadian university and one of the top-ranked public universities in the five most closely watched international rankings: Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings, QS World University Rankings, ShanghaiRanking Consultancy’s Academic Ranking of World Universities, U.S. News & World Report’s Best Global Universities and National Taiwan University World University Rankings.

U of T’s Geoffrey Hinton delivers Nobel lecture alongside co-laureate

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 20:48:27 +0000

U of T’s Geoffrey Hinton delivers Nobel lecture alongside co-laureate

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 12/09/2024 - 15:48

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U of T's Geoffrey Hinton, left, and John J. Hopfield of Princeton University, right, who share the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, shake hands after their Nobel lectures in Stockholm (photo by Pontus Lundahl/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Global Lens

Leah Cowen

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Subheadline

In Stockholm for a series of Nobel Week events, the “godfather of AI” will officially accept his Nobel Prize in Physics at a ceremony on Dec. 10

The University of Toronto’s Geoffrey Hinton took to the stage at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm this weekend – two days before he officially accepts his Nobel Prize in Physics for fundamental work in AI – to deliver a lecture on the inventions and discoveries that led to him being given the prestigious award.

“Today, I’m going to do something very foolish – I’m going to try and describe a complicated technical idea for a general audience, without using any equations,” said Hinton, a U of T University Professor emeritus of computer science, prompting laughter from the audience.

The “godfather of AI” then proceeded to outline how decades of his fundamental research, and that of his co-laureate John J. Hopfield of Princeton University, enabled the development of artificial neural networks and machine learning – technologies that underpin today’s AI revolution.

The Nobel lectures are among the highlights of Nobel Week, which runs from Dec. 6-12 in Stockholm and Oslo and includes award ceremonies, banquets, media engagements and commemorations at the Nobel Museum. There is also a series of Nobel Week events taking place at U of T, including watch parties on all three campuses for the livestream of the Dec. 10 award ceremony.

Sunday’s first Nobel Prize lecture in physics was delivered by Hopfield, who shared how his fascination with the workings of the human brain inspired his development of the Hopfield network – an associative memory that can store and reconstruct patterns in data.

“How mind emerges from brain is, to me, the deepest question posed by our humanity,” Hopfield said.

When it was Hinton’s turn to take the stage, he described how he and Terry Sejnowski – one of Hopfield’s students – came upon a novel use of Hopfield nets: “Instead of using them to store memories, we could use them to construct interpretations of sensory input,” Hinton said.

He then went on to discuss the resulting Boltzmann machine, a type of neural network that is capable of recognizing elements within data.

Hinton discusses the significance of the Boltzmann machine (photo by U of T staff)

Yet, despite its promise, the original Boltzmann machine was too slow, Hinton said, and it wasn’t until several years later that he came up with “restricted Boltzmann machines,” which impose limitations on connections between neurons in order to increase system efficiency – a development that would prove pivotal in training deep neural networks (Hinton donated an early Boltzmann chip, about the size of a postage stamp, to the Nobel Prize Museum).

Following the lecture, Hinton was joined on stage by Hopfield, with the pair sharing a vigorous handshake and posing for photos.

U of T brought together a panel of experts in Stockholm to discuss AI research and development (photo by Jonas Borg)

Separately, U of T convened an expert panel in Stockholm on Monday about the direction of AI research and development.

Moderated by Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives, the panel included: Eyal de Lara, a professor and chair of the department of computer science in U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science; David Lie, director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and a professor in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering; Tony Gaffney, president and CEO of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence; and Amy Loutfi, professor of computer science and pro-vice-chancellor for AI at Örebro University in Sweden.

The conversation touched on areas including the promising applications of AI, how responsible deployment of AI can mitigate the technology’s potential pitfalls and implications of AI’s rise on education.

U of T President Meric Gertler said that the AI breakthroughs fostered by Hinton’s research were made possible by Canada’s longstanding support of basic research.

“Geoff was interested in the novel but unproven concept of artificial neural networks, an area that was sometimes described as the ‘unpromising backwater’ of AI research,” President Gertler said in his remarks introducing the panel, noting that Hinton joined U of T in 1987 and was one of the first scholars to receive support from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR).

“Canada was investing in brilliant people, their ideas and their students – and those investments have paid off many years later.”

Canada was also the first country to launch a national AI roadmap, President Gertler said, in the form of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy – which funds three national AI institutes including the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, which is now housed in U of T’s new Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus. The state-of-the-art building also hosts the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, which is at the forefront of research and thought leadership on AI safety and responsible development, with Hinton one of its advisory board members.

“In short, Canada has played a key role in launching and driving the AI revolution and we’re a world leader in understanding and promoting safe, human-centred AI,” President Gertler said.

The theme of responsible AI was also brought up during a Q-and-A with Hinton, who revealed that the remarkable information-sharing abilities of large language models played a big role in sparking his now oft-repeated concerns around the current pace of the technology’s development.

“That’s when I came to realize that the fact that they’re so much better at sharing probably means that digital intelligence is just a better form of intelligence than us – and that’s what got me so worried,” he said.

Asked what responsible AI regulation looks like, Hinton said there must first be a consensus around solving the problem from a scientific standpoint – not unlike the scientific consensus that has emerged around climate change.

“Like the early days of climate change, the first thing to do is figure out what’s causing it and get scientific agreement on how you can fix it. Then, the second thing to do is get the politicians to do something about it … but here, we haven’t finished the first thing yet.”

Geoffrey Hinton shares 2024 VinFuture Grand Prize for work on deep learning

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 19:32:41 +0000

Geoffrey Hinton shares 2024 VinFuture Grand Prize for work on deep learning

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 12/06/2024 - 14:32

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(photo by Johnny Guatto)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Global Lens

Leah Cowen

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Artificial Intelligence

Awards

Computer Science

Faculty of Arts & Science

Geoffrey Hinton

Research & Innovation

Vector Institute

Subheadline

Known as the "godfather of AI," Hinton was one of five people honoured with the US$3-million prize awarded by Vietnam's VinFuture Foundation

Geoffrey Hinton, University Professor emeritus of computer science at the University of Toronto and winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, has added another prestigious award to his collection: the 2024 VinFuture Grand Prize.

The US$3-million prize, awarded by the not-for-profit VinFuture Foundation in Vietnam, recognizes seminal scientific advancements that are improving the quality of human life and forging a more equitable and sustainable world.

Hinton, known as the “godfather of AI,” shares the prize with Yoshua Bengio, Jen-Hsun (Jensen) Huang, Yann LeCun and Fei-Fei Li. The five are honoured for their contributions to the development and adoption of deep learning, which is revolutionizing fields ranging from biomedical research and transportation to manufacturing, clean energy and agriculture.

“The University of Toronto couldn’t be more proud of University Professor Emeritus Geoff Hinton,” said Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives. “When Geoff arrived at U of T nearly 40 years ago, his research into neural networks – influenced by his ideas about how the brain learns – was considered an AI backwater, if it was considered at all.

“Fast-forward to today, and his seminal work is transforming our world in ways that we’ve only begun to grasp. This award is a testament to the power of curiosity-driven research – and the impact of investing in brilliant, curious researchers.”

The VinFuture Foundation noted that Hinton and Bengio – a professor at the Université de Montréal – were awarded the prize for their research on neural networks and deep learning algorithms. LeCun, the chief AI scientist for Facebook AI Research who was one of Hinton’s post-doctoral students at U of T in the1980s, was recognized for helping develop convolutional neural networks for computer vision. Huang, the co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA, was recognized for his work on computational architectures for deep learning and accelerated computing, while Li, a professor at Stanford University, was celebrated for contributions to computer vision and large-scale image recognition.

In a video message, Hinton, an adviser at U of T’s Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society who is also co-founder and chief scientific adviser at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Toronto, said he was honoured to share the award with such an esteemed group of researchers – including his fellow A.M Turing Award-winners Bengio and LeCun.

“The three of us spent our whole lives developing the technology of neural networks,” Hinton said in remarks that noted the collective nature of the achievement.

“I’m very happy to see that the VinFuture Prize recognizes the contributions of Jensen Huang in developing the kind of compute and software required for artificial intelligence, and Fei-Fei Li in providing the big data that was needed to prove that it worked.”

Now in its fourth year, the VinFuture Prize was created with the goal of celebrating scientific and technological innovations that are aligned with the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which include poverty alleviation, renewable energy, ending hunger and improving health.

Friday’s award ceremony was attended by Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and distinguished leaders, scientists and diplomats from around the world. It was broadcast live on Vietnamese television and streamed online.

“It’s terrific to see this recognition of Geoff’s extraordinary work and its potential to help address some of the world’s greatest challenges,” said Cowen. “Researchers around the globe – including a number of his former students – are using AI to help solve some of the most pressing challenges of our time in areas such as health care, sustainability and climate change.”

The prize comes as Hinton prepares to officially accept his Nobel Prize in Physics in Sweden on Dec. 10. He shared the Nobel with John J. Hopfield of Princeton University for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.

Hinton, who joined U of T in 1987 after working in universities in the U.K. and U.S., has said that he plans to leverage his growing fame to spread awareness of the dangers of unchecked AI development – a warning he first shared after leaving a research position at Google in early 2023.

U of T shines a spotlight on exceptional educators at Excellence in Teaching reception

rahul.kalvapalle — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 18:02:53 +0000

U of T shines a spotlight on exceptional educators at Excellence in Teaching reception

rahul.kalvapalle Wed, 11/27/2024 - 13:02

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U of T Vice-President and Provost Trevor Young (centre) poses with Cheryl Regehr Early Career Teaching Award recipients, from left to right: Jasty Singh, Spyridon Kotsovilis, S. Trimble and Roberta K. Timothy (photo by Polina Teif)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Our Community

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Trevor Young

Early Career Teaching Award

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Teaching

U of T Mississauga

U of T Scarborough

Women and Gender Studies

At the University of Toronto, teaching is about much more than just imparting knowledge – it’s an engaging, dynamic and creative process that expands and enriches the way students think, preparing them for future success in academics and their careers.

The recent Excellence in Teaching reception hosted by U of T’s Office of the Provost recognized the fundamental importance of teaching to the university’s mission. In particular, it honoured five faculty members who received Cheryl Regehr Early Career Teaching Awards, which were recently renamed in honour of Cheryl Regehr – Young’s predecessor as vice-president and provost, a professor in the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and a longtime champion of teaching excellence and innovation at U of T.

“These awards recognize burgeoning talent among our most junior faculty. We expect – and we know from experience – that these recipients will continue to lead and excel in teaching,” Trevor Young, U of T’s vice-president and provost said at the Nov. 4 event held at the Faculty Club.

The event also featured the presentation of the Global Educator Award, which recognizes a faculty member who exemplifies U of T’s global mission by incorporating intercultural and international perspectives.

“I’m extremely proud of U of T for many reasons,” Young said, “and one of them is what’s evident here today, which is the immense talent and experience of our faculty as well as their deep commitment to our university, to our students, to knowledge [and] to research. All that you’re doing is really incredible.”

U of T News spoke with all six award winners about their approach to educating students: