Doina Precup facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Doina Precup
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Doina Precup with Ian Kerr in Montreal (2018)
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| Nationality | Romanian |
| Alma mater | Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, University of Massachusetts Amherst |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | artificial intelligence |
| Institutions | McGill University, Google DeepMind |
| Thesis | Temporal Abstraction in Reinforcement Learning (2000) |
| Doctoral advisor | Richard S. Sutton |
Doina Precup is a scientist from Romania who lives in Montreal, Canada. She is an expert in artificial intelligence (AI). AI is about making computers smart, like humans. Doina Precup works at McGill University as a research leader. She also helps lead the Montreal office of Google DeepMind, which is a company that creates AI.
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Doina Precup's Education
Doina Precup became interested in artificial intelligence when she was young. She loved science fiction stories where robots were helpful and kind. Her mother was also a computer science professor in Romania.
University Studies
Doina Precup earned her first degree in computer science and engineering in 1994. She studied at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca in Romania. She then received her master's degree from the same university in 1995.
In 1995, she moved to the United States. She received a special scholarship called a Fulbright scholarship. This allowed her to study at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned another master's degree in 1997 and her PhD in 2000.
Encouraging Girls in Science
Many women in Doina Precup's family had successful careers in science. Her high school in Romania also had many girls in its science program. She only noticed that there were fewer women in science and technology when she moved to North America.
Because of this, she decided to help change the situation. She is a co-founder and advisor for the AI4Good Lab. This group works to encourage more women to study and work in artificial intelligence.
Career in Artificial Intelligence
Doina Precup joined McGill University in Montreal in 2000. She became an assistant professor in the School of Computer Science. She has lived in the Montreal area ever since.
Working with Google DeepMind
In 2017, Doina Precup was chosen to lead the Montreal office of DeepMind. DeepMind is a company that focuses on artificial intelligence and is owned by Google. She continues to teach at McGill University.
At DeepMind, she does important research on something called reinforcement learning. This is a way to teach computers to make decisions by trying things and learning from their mistakes. She also works on how AI can help in areas like health care. For example, AI can help doctors understand medical images better. She is very interested in how machines can make good decisions even when things are uncertain.
AI Research and Safety
Doina Precup is a senior member of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. She is also a member of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. She belongs to the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms.
In 2017, she joined four other AI researchers. They wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of Canada. They asked him to think about the dangers of AI-controlled weapons. These are weapons that could make decisions on their own. They wanted to make sure that AI is used safely and responsibly.
