grad studies in artificial intelligence

[hynkle]

I'm an American with a year left in my computer science BS. I'm intending to move to Canada post-graduation, but I'm horribly unfamiliar with Canada's universities. Within a few years, I'd like to continue my studies at the graduate level, but I don't really know where to start, which universities I should consider, and which I should reject out of hand. Though I haven't yet encountered an area of computer science I don't like, my preferred field is artificial intelligence, and so I'd be happiest pursuing that at the graduate level, but I haven't been able to find too much information about the study of artificial intelligence at Canadian universities. Does anyone have some suggestions of where to start looking?

UBC is my current (though admittedly uninformed) favorite. Its location can't really be beat, and they seem to have a decent breadth of AI courses. Their masters program is also funded, which is a definite plus.

[jernst]

You could try a google Canada search for "AI research group" or "AI research lab". I don't know much about AI research myself but I think there are a few people on the forums here that are involved in it so maybe they will post a better answer soon. A good place to start looking might be at the faculty of the Universities you are interested in. There you might be able to find their webpages which might have more information about their research. This way you can try to identify which schools have people you might want to work with.

As you said though funding is definitely a good thing to look for when selecting a school. I currently work part time to help support myself and it would be alot easier if I could focus solely on school with better funding

[Tony]

University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, and UBC are the firsts to come to mind. Can't really comment on the specifics though.

[silent1mezzo]

The University of Guelph has a really good AI professor taking grad students at the moment.

[bugzpodder]

if you want AI, it would be stupid to come to Canada. goto CMU. If you like game AI (which is decidedly different from neural netowrks), goto UofAlberta. Their game group rocks (Go, Checkers, Chess, Poker, etc)

[Skynet]

If you're intending on anything related to robotics, I've heard good things about SFU and U of T...but nothing too good. For robotics AI, don't come to Canada if you have a choice.

bugzpodder, for a more CS approach to AI, I'd personally take Stanford over CMU. (you know, assuming I had $50K+ sitting around)

[PaulButler]

bugzpodder @ Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:46 pm wrote:

... goto CMU. ...

You can always tell someone who started with BASIC .

[Vermette]

If you're set on studying in Canada, Simon Fraser U, U Alberta, and U of Toronto seem to be the schools with very active AI groups from what I've heard. Alberta especially. jernst beat me to the punch; my advice would be to hit the faculty page at each university and look up what they are currently working on. Any that strikes your fancy, contact them. A lot of professors usually have a section on their website if they're actively looking to take on students.

And here comes my obligatory pitch: I formally begin grad studies in AI this fall at U of Windsor. The AI research I'm aware of here is in genetic algorithms, natural language processing, multiagent systems, and my supervisor who dabbles in Game AI, specifically path-finding and constraint satisfaction problems.

[bugzpodder]

cmu is hands down the best graduate program in artificial intelligence, in particular competitive programs in cognitive modeling, neural networks, logic, machine learning, natural languages and vision.