Computer Vision News - February 2021

24 Women in Computer Vision Currently a consultant, Myriam Côté has served as the Director of Projects and Industrial R&D at the University of Montreal for the past several years. More recently, she became the Director of AI for Humanity at MILA, the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms founded by Yoshua Bengio. She holds a PhD from what is now called Télécom Paris. This interview was conducted in French. Thank you to Yoshua Bengio for putting us in touch with Myriam. Click here to find 100 more interviews withWomen in Computer Vision! Myriam, how did you get into this impressive career? I first studied Music, but I was very curious and I loved science, so I became an engineer in photonics optics and AI. I got my PhD in AI and went to work in the industry in the field of technology transfer. I wanted to do something practical with science: I had the romantic vision that an engineer must be creative, to invent things and find solutions. I needed to express my creativity and imagination. We were 12 girls in a class of 100! I do not believe that women are attracted “It was like five jobs at the same time!” First job at Office du film du Canada as R&D engineer in 1989