Alex Hernandez-Garcia
Brief academic bio
I am an assistant professor at the Université de Montréal at DIRO and a core academic member at Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, in Tiohtià:ke / Montréal. Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher working with Prof. Yoshua Bengio and Prof. David Rolnick. I defended my PhD thesis in 2020 at the University of Osnabrück, which I started in 2016 with Prof. Peter König, as a fellow of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie ITN NexGenVis. I obtained my bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University Carlos III of Madrid. During my doctoral stuedies, I did research internships at the University of Cambridge with Dr. Tim Kietzmann and at the Spinoza Center for Neuroimaging with Dr. Serge Dumoulin.
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Current research
My current work focuses on machine learning research that can facilitate scientific discoveries to tackle the climate crisis and health challenges. For example, I have ongoing collaborations on projects for antibiotics discovery, the design of novel battery materials and climate modelling with machine learning. In terms of methods, I work on developing generative models, such as GFlowNets, and active learning for scientific discoveries. In particular, I am working on multi-fidelity active learning methods, crystal structure generation, molecular design and molecular conformation sampling. Furthermore, I am increasingly interested in critically analysing the societal impacts of so-called artificial intelligence. My previous research has studied the carbon emissions of machine learning models, the implications of big tech’s influence in AI research and the role of AI researchers in the development of weapons systems.
My vision of science
I am a big fan of interdisciplinary research. I find it not only fruitful but also very fun to collaborate with researchers from other disciplines. I work on machine learning research that can be useful for other scientists, I try to establish collaborations with them and this often inspires new research directions.
Besides my research, I am a strong proponent of open science in the broadest sense, and I try to contribute to it with my actions and by getting involved in discussions about how to make science more inclusive, equitable, open, reproducible, transparent and environmentally conscious. One way I channel and feed these ideas is by being active in the community of Science for the People. I often participate as mentor in initiatives to support students from under-represented groups, such as the AI4Good Lab, the Fatima Fellowship or LatinX in AI. At Mila, I have been a member of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and the Sustainability Committee. With amazing colleagues, I co-organise the Critical Science reading group at Mila. In 2021/2022, I was the elected postdoctoral Mila Lab Representative. At NeurIPS 2021, I co-organised a workshop on pre-registration in machine learning and in 2022 the AI Helps Ukraine - Charity Conference.
Contact
If you are looking for graduate or postdoc positions to work on machine learning for science to have an impact on tackling climate change and health challenges, I’d love to hear from you!
alex.hernandez-garcia at mila.quebec