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Raquel Urtasun
Chief Scientist of Uber ATG, Head of Uber ATG R&D, Head of Uber ATG Toronto, Professor at University of Toronto
Raquel Urtasun is the Founder and CEO of Waabi, an AI company building self-driving technology.35 She is also a Full Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto and a co-founder of the Vector Institute for AI.3 Urtasun is considered a world-leading expert in AI for self-driving cars.3
Urtasun was previously the Chief Scientist and Head of R&D at Uber ATG from 2017 to 2021.3 Prior to that, she was a Canada Research Chair in Machine Learning and Computer Vision from 2015 to 2017.34
Background::
- Urtasun was born on January 30, 1976.2
- She received a bachelor's degree in Telecommunication Engineering from the Universidad Publica de Navarra in 2000.23
- In 2006, she earned a Ph.D. degree from the Computer Science department at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).23
- She completed postdoctoral research at MIT (2006–2008) and UC Berkeley (2008–2009).23
Career Highlights::
- Assistant Professor at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (TTIC) (2009–2014).12
- Visiting professor at ETH Zurich in 2010.23
- Hired by Uber in May 2017 to lead a Toronto-based research team on self-driving cars.2
- Chief Scientist and Head of R&D at Uber ATG (2017-2021).3
- Founded Waabi Innovation in 2021, focusing on developing self-driving cars.2
- Named OCC's 2023 Emerging Technology CEO of the Year.5
Recognition and Awards::
- NSERC EWR Steacie Fellow.34
- NVIDIA Pioneers of AI Award.34
- Ministry of Education and Innovation Early Researcher Award.3
- Three Google Faculty Research Awards.34
- Amazon Faculty Research Award.34
- Connaught New Researcher Award.3
- Fallona Family Research Award.3
- Chatelaine 2018 Woman of the year.3
- 2018 Toronto's top influencers by Adweek magazine.3
- Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada (2024).4
Urtasun's research interests include machine learning, computer vision, robotics, AI, and remote sensing.23
Highlights
Jan 6 · weforum.org
Raquel Urtasun - Agenda Contributor - The World Economic Forum
Sep 21 · occ.ca
Raquel Urtasun Named OCC's 2023 Emerging Technology CEO of ...
Mar 17 · artsci.utoronto.ca
Three takeaways from Waabi CEO Raquel Urtasun's entrepreneurial ...
Oct 5 · canadianbusiness.com
Raquel Urtasun Is Bringing Transparency to Self-Driving Technology
Oct 1 · globalnews.ca
Tech in T.O.: Meet Raquel Urtasun, the driving force behind Uber's ...

