Five professors at the Cheriton School of Computer Science have received the John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF), one of Canada’s top research grants.
In 1997, the federal government launched the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) to spur world-class research and technology development in Canada. One of CFI’s core programs is JELF, which recognizes researchers who have demonstrated excellence in their fields and their proposed project is innovative, high-quality and meets international standards.
This year, over 400 researchers across Canada received the JELF grant, including Computer Science Professors Wenhu Chen, Yuntian Deng, Freda Shi, Hong Zhang and Victor Zhong. These researchers’ grants totalled $539,073, allowing them to reach new heights in fields from cybersecurity to AI.
Wenhu Chen & Freda Shi | Enriching the linguistic diversity of open language models ($168,004)
Yuntian Deng | Progressive internalization of skills for advanced language model reasoning ($96,000)
Despite its widespread use, some large language models (LLM) struggle with tasks that require high-level reasoning — a topic that Professor Yuntian Deng has discussed. Even the leading AI tool, ChatGPT, may miscalculate complex math equations, such as large-digit multiplication.
The main issue is the reasoning capabilities of LLMs, which is the focus of Professor Deng’s research project. His project could advance LLM’s ability to solve complex tasks by focusing on “progressive internalization.”
“Just as children first learn to walk before running, we progressively teach large language models to internalize basic reasoning skills, such as arithmetic, before advancing to more sophisticated tasks like calculus. In this way, the model can gradually shift its focus toward higher-level reasoning once foundational skills have been internalized,” says Professor Deng.
Hong Zhang | Serving systems for large language models with low latency, high utilization, good scalability, and low carbon emissions ($195,069)
Victor Zhong | Privacy-aware language agents via post-deployment learning and adaptation ($80,000)
Professor Victor Zhong is a highly productive early-career researcher who was named a CIFAR AI Chair and faculty member at the Vector Institute in 2024. His research is at the intersection of natural language processing and machine learning, with an emphasis on teaching machines to read natural language specifications to generalize new problems.
With the JELF grant, he will focus on creating language agents — a type of AI agent that uses natural language processing to understand its environment and make decisions — that can safeguard user privacy.
“I am honoured to receive this award and look forward to using it to build state-of-the-art AI systems to benefit all Canadians,” says Professor Zhong.
