Faculty-Richard_Zemel-Faculty-450x450

Richard Zemel

Trianthe Dakolias Professor of Engineering and Applied Science; Professor of Computer Science

Richard Zemel’s research focuses on machine learning and artificial intelligence. He is also interested in natural intelligence, including neuroscience and cognitive science.

His recent research targets learning with few labels and creating robust and controllable machine learning systems, which can transfer to a variety of tasks and domains. He also has a strong interest in algorithmic fairness.

Previously, Zemel was the NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Machine Learning at the University of Toronto, and co-founded and served as the Research Director of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. He is the recipient of an ONR Young Investigator Award, an NVIDIA Pioneer of AI Award, and is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

Zemel is the director of ARNI, an NSF Institute for Artificial and Natural Intelligence, which is based at Columbia.  In his spare time, he likes sports such as hockey, squash, and biking, and eating.

Research Areas

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)
  • Vision and Robotics
  • Computational Neuroscience
  • Natural Language and Conversational AIs

Additional information

  • Professional Experience
    • Professor, Columbia University, Computer Science, 2021-
    • Amazon Scholar, 2021-
    • Research Director, Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligene, 2018-2021
    • Professor, University of Toronto, Computer Science, 2009-2021
    • Associate Professor, University of Toronto, Computer Science, 2001-2009
    • Assistant Professor, University of Toronto, Computer Science, 2000-2001
    • Assistant Professor, University of Arizona, Psychology & Computer Science, 1996-2000
  • Professional Affiliations
    • Advisory Board, Neural Information Processing Society (NeurIPS)
    • Steering Committee, ACM Fairness, Accountability and Transparency (FaCCT) Conference
  • Honors & Awards
    • Lifetime Achievement Award, Canadian AI Association, 2023
    • Test of Time Award, ICML, 2023
    • AI Chair, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (2020)
    • Pioneers of AI, NVIDIA (2016)
  • Education
    • PhD, Computer Science, University of Toronto
    • MS, Computer Science, University of Toronto
    • BA, History and Science, Harvard University