Distinguished Lecture Series

Upcoming lectures

TBD

Past lectures

Professor Li Deng, Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer, Citadel, FCAE, FIEEE

Professor Li Deng Title: From speech AI to finance AI, and back

Date: March 18, 2021

Abstract:

A brief review will be provided first on how deep learning has disrupted speech recognition and language processing industries since 2009. Then connections will be drawn between the techniques (deep learning or otherwise) for modeling speech and language and those for financial markets. Similarities and differences of these two fields will be explored. In particular, three unique technical challenges to AI-empowered financial investment are addressed: extremely low signal-to-noise ratio, extremely strong nonstationarity (with adversarial nature), and heterogeneous big data. Finally, how the potential solutions to these challenges can come back to benefit and further advance speech recognition and language processing technology will be discussed.

Biography:

Professor Li Deng is the Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer for Citadel. Prior to joining Citadel, he held the roles of Chief Scientist of Artificial Intelligence, the founder of the Deep Learning Technology Centre, and a Partner Research Manager at Microsoft and Microsoft Research - Redmond, from 2000 to 2017.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Deng was an assistant professor (1989-1992), and tenured associate (1992-1996) and full professor (1996-1999) in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo. He also held faculty and research positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1992-1993), Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute, Kyoto, Japan (1997-1998), and the HK University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong (1995). He was also an affiliate professor at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Professor Deng is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the IEEE, Washington State Academy of Sciences, Acoustical Society of America, and the International Speech Communication Association. He was an elected member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Signal Processing Society, and was Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine and the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, for which he received the IEEE SPS Meritorious Service Award. In recognition of this pioneering work in the speech recognition industry using large-scale deep learning, Professor Deng received the 2015 IEEE SPS Technical Achievement Award for “Outstanding Contributions to Automatic Speech Recognition and to Deep Learning.” He also received dozens of best paper and patent awards for his contributions to artificial intelligence, machine learning, information retrieval, multimedia signal processing, speech processing and recognition, and human language technology.

Professor Deng is an author and co-author of six technical books on deep learning, speech processing, pattern recognition, machine learning, and natural language processing (Springer, June 2018).

Professor Chris Wilson

Professor Chris Wilson Title: Generating Quantum Microwaves using Superconducting Circuits

Speaker: Professor Chris Wilson

Christopher Wilson received his B.S. in Physics from MIT in 1996. There he performed undergraduate research on the role of nonlinear dynamics in the nervous system using analog circuit simulators. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Yale University in 2002. His dissertation focused on the development of single-photon optical spectrometers using superconducting tunnel junctions. He then worked at Yale as the W.M. Keck postdoctoral fellow where he started work on quantum computation and information processing using superconducting single-electronics. In 2004, he moved to Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, later becoming an Assistant Professor in 2007 and an Associate Professor in 2011. In 2011/2012, he spent a sabbatical year working at a biomedical startup company in Pasadena, where he worked on signal processing and machine learning for medical diagnostics. In 2012, Wilson joined the University of Waterloo where he was appointed to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as an Associate Professor, and cross-appointed to the Department of Physics and Astronomy. He also has an affiliation with the Institute for Quantum Computing. His research focuses on applications of superconducting quantum electronics to quantum information, computing and sensing and the foundations of quantum mechanics. His work has been recognized internationally, receiving the 2012 Wallmark prize from the Royal Swedish Academy and being named one of the top 5 breakthroughs of 2011 by Physics World magazine.