Christopher Pal Appointed Interim Co-Scientific Director – Scientific and International Activities at IVADO

Montreal, March 12, 2026 – IVADO is pleased to announce the appointment of Christopher Pal as Interim Co-Scientific Director, responsible for Scientific and International Activities.

Holder of a Canada-CIFAR AI Chair, full professor at Polytechnique Montréal, and associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research (DIRO) at the Université de Montréal, Christopher Pal is also a senior academic member at Mila and a distinguished researcher at ServiceNow Research. He brings over twenty-five years of experience in artificial intelligence and machine learning research. 

His internationally recognized work focuses notably on large-scale language modeling methods and generative modeling techniques. With a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo, he has made significant contributions to advancing contemporary AI approaches, both fundamental and applied.

As part of this interim mandate, Chris Pal will help strengthen IVADO’s scientific positioning, support the planning of scientific activities, and consolidate strategic international collaborations. His expertise and international reputation are major assets for advancing the development of robust, reasoning, and responsible artificial intelligence.

“Chris is a cornerstone of the Canadian AI community and was involved in the creation of IVADO. A researcher of considerable scope with impressive achievements, he enjoys a global reputation and an extensive network that he will leverage to further the deployment of IVADO’s international strategy. His versatility, sound judgment, and collegial spirit will also support his leadership in guiding our scientific activities. It is exciting that someone of his caliber is taking over from Foutse Khomh, who held this role with distinction and whom I also warmly thank for his contributions,” emphasizes Luc Vinet, Executive Director of IVADO.

IVADO welcomes him to his new role and looks forward to relying on his expertise to continue its research and innovation activities in support of the R³AI vision.