Zoubin Ghahramani facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Zoubin Ghahramani
|
|
|---|---|
Ghahramani in 2015, portrait from the Royal Society
|
|
| Born | 8 February 1970 |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for |
|
| Awards | FRS (2015) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields |
|
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Computation and Psychophysics of Sensorimotor Integration (1995) |
| Doctoral advisor |
|
Zoubin Ghahramani (born February 8, 1970) is a famous British-Iranian scientist. He works in the exciting fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Machine learning is about teaching computers to learn from data. AI is about making computers smart like humans.
Currently, Zoubin Ghahramani is a Vice President of Research at Google DeepMind. This is a big company that works on advanced AI. He is also a Professor of Information Engineering at the University of Cambridge in the UK. Since 2009, he has been a Fellow at St John's College, Cambridge. Before joining Google, he was the Chief Scientist at Uber from 2016 to 2020. He also led Google Brain before it joined with DeepMind.
Contents
Learning and Degrees
Zoubin Ghahramani went to school in Spain at the American School of Madrid. He then studied at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. In 1990, he earned two degrees there. One was in Cognitive Science, which studies how the mind works. The other was in Computer Science, which is about computers and programming.
He continued his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There, he earned his Ph.D. (a very high degree) in Cognitive Neuroscience. This field combines brain science with how we think and learn. His supervisors were Michael I. Jordan and Tomaso Poggio, who are also well-known scientists.
His Work and Discoveries
After getting his Ph.D. in 1995, Ghahramani became a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Toronto. He worked in the Artificial Intelligence Lab with Geoffrey Hinton, another famous AI expert. From 1998 to 2005, he taught at University College London.
What is Bayesian Machine Learning?
Zoubin Ghahramani has made important discoveries in Bayesian machine learning. This is a way for computers to learn and make decisions using probability. It helps them understand uncertainty. He also worked on graphical models, which are like maps that show how different pieces of information are connected. He also contributed to computational neuroscience, which uses computers to understand the brain.
His research often focuses on making computer models that can learn from lots of data. He has written over 300 scientific papers. These papers have been used and referenced by other scientists many times.
Working at Tech Companies
In 2014, Ghahramani helped start a company called Geometric Intelligence. This company was bought by Uber in 2016. After that, he became a leader in Uber's AI Labs. He later became the Vice President of AI and Chief Scientist at Uber.
In 2020, he joined Google. He became a Vice President of Research and led Google Brain in 2021. Google Brain was a team that worked on advanced AI. In April 2023, Google Brain joined with DeepMind to form Google DeepMind.
Awards and Special Recognitions
Zoubin Ghahramani has received many awards for his work.
Royal Society Fellow
In 2015, he was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). This is a very special honor for top scientists in the UK. It means he is recognized as a world leader in machine learning. The Royal Society noted his work on algorithms that learn from data. They also highlighted his contributions to probabilistic modeling and Bayesian approaches. He helped create new ways for computers to learn efficiently.
Milner Award
In 2021, the Royal Society gave him the Milner Award. This award recognized his important work in probabilistic machine learning. It shows how much his ideas have helped the field grow.
