Professors Paul Masset (Psychology) and David Rolnick (Computer Science) have been named Sloan Research Fellows.
They are among the 126 early-career researchers who are the latest recipients of the prestigious two-year, $75,000 fellowship sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Fellows are nominated by their colleagues and evaluated based on their research accomplishments, creativity and potential to become leaders in their fields. The winners were announced today.
“The Sloan Research Fellowships celebrate the exceptional talent of Professors Masset and Rolnick, whose work exemplifies McGill’s leadership in artificial-intelligence research and innovation,” said Dominique Bérubé, Vice-President of Research and Innovation. “McGill has long played a pivotal role in the AI ecosystem, driving advances that tackle real-world challenges, from neuroscience to climate solutions. These awards reaffirm the strength and impact of McGill’s interdisciplinary approach to AI, positioning us among the leading institutions in this transformative field.”
Since the award’s inception in 1955, 33 McGill faculty have received a Sloan Research Fellowship, including this year’s winners.
Paul Masset, Psychology
Masset works at the intersection of neuroscience, AI and cognitive science to enhance our understanding of human and artificial intelligence.
His interdisciplinary research – which combines methods from neuroscience, psychology and machine learning – explores how the brain’s structure helps it learn and make decisions effectively.
One of Masset’s focuses is how the brain uses dopamine to support learning and decision-making. Masset and his research group investigate how this key neurotransmitter acts as a “reward centre” in our brains, reinforcing certain behaviours and helping us learn from experience so we can make better choices in the future.
Masset’s research group will develop new computational models to understand the diverse computational role of dopamine-based learning and will test them using recordings of rodents’ brain activity as they perform various tasks to uncover the underlying neural mechanisms. The group looks to leverage these findings to in turn improve AI reinforcement learning algorithms.
“I am extremely honoured to have been selected as a Sloan Research Fellow. This support will enable me to consolidate the start of my research group that crosses the usual boundaries of traditional research funding agencies,” said Masset. “By integrating ideas from multiple disciplines, we hope to understand the role of heterogeneity in dopamine signaling in both health and disease. In the long term, we hope that this new approach will help us design new targeted therapies. Incorporating principles from biological brains will also allow us to design neural networks that are both more data and energy efficient. “
Prior to joining McGill in 2024, Masset was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University. He is an affiliate member of Mila – Quebec AI Institute.
David Rolnick, Computer Science
Rolnick, who holds a Canada CIFAR AI Chair, uses innovative machine learning techniques to address critical challenges related to climate change, such as electrical grid optimization, biodiversity monitoring and modelling the Earth system.
When he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in 2019, Rolnick led an influential report detailing how machine learning could be used to tackle some of the most pressing problems we face in the fight against climate change. The report was a catalyst for mobilizing academics and industry leaders to work at the intersection of AI and climate.
Since joining McGill and Mila in 2020, Rolnick has continued this pioneering work through his research group, where he is using machine learning to scale up our ability to monitor biodiversity and forests in a changing climate, shape agricultural policies, model extreme weather events and design critical materials for the transition to lower-carbon energy.
“While AI gets so much attention nowadays, it’s often grandiose projections about the future, rather than practical tools designed to make people’s lives better right now,” said Rolnick. “I am very grateful for this recognition by the Sloan Foundation of the importance of cross-disciplinary, application-driven AI.”
Rolnick is co-founder and chair of the nonprofit organization Climate Change AI and is the Scientific Co-director of the Concordia-based think tank Sustainability in the Digital Age.
Rolnick has also played a key role in shaping public policy. In 2021, he co-led a report for OECD’s Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) that provided recommendations to governments that have helped shape such policies as the EU AI Act and was a featured speaker on AI and sustainability at the recent AI Action Summit in Paris.
Consult the list of the recipients of the 2025 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship.