Melissa McCorriston has received a Vector Scholarship in Artificial Intelligence from the Vector Institute. These $17,500 scholarships recognize promising scholars and researchers in Ontario and support their further studies in a top provincial artificial intelligence–related master’s program.
Melissa is in the inaugural class of the Master of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (MDSAI) program, with approximately 40 students. This is a coursework-based graduate degree with a co-op placement offered by Faculty of Mathemathics. The program is supported by three academic units — the Cheriton School of Computer Science, the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization, and the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science. The MDSAI program takes an interdisciplinary approach that recognizes the importance of computer science, statistics and optimization in data science and artificial intelligence.
Melissa comes to the University of Waterloo from Western University, where she earned a dual degree — a bachelor’s in data science for which she was a gold medal recipient and a bachelor’s in business administration from the Ivey School of Business from which she graduated with distinction. Melissa’s goal is to become an expert in machine learning and artificial intelligence. She hopes to use the skills gained in the MDSAI program to secure an AI-related position in a technology-centric company.
“Congratulations to Melissa,” said Yuying Li, a Professor in the Cheriton School of Computer Science and Director of the University of Waterloo’s Data Science Program. “Vector scholarship recipients are among the best and most promising students in artificial intelligence. We are pleased that Melissa received this prestigious scholarship and chose to come to Waterloo to enroll in the new MDSAI program.”
The Vector Institute is an independent not-for-profit corporation dedicated to advancing the field of artificial intelligence through world-class research and applications in deep learning and machine learning.