Raquel Urtasun
Born 1976 · Age 49
Spanish-Canadian researcher and entrepreneur in machine learning, computer vision and self-driving vehicles; professor at the University of Toronto; founder & CEO of Waabi; co-founder of the Vector Institute.
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Life & Career Timeline
Completed Bachelor's in Telecommunication Engineering
Received B.Sc. in Telecommunication Engineering from Universidad Pública de Navarra.
Started TA duties at EPFL
Began serving as a teaching assistant at EPFL (listed TA duties spanning 2002–2006).
Awarded Ph.D. in Computer Science (EPFL)
Completed Ph.D. at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne; thesis 'Motion Models for Robust 3D Human Body Tracking'.
Started postdoctoral research at MIT
Postdoctoral scholar with Trevor Darrell at MIT (2006–2008).
Taught/ran seminar at MIT (6.976)
Involved in MIT course 6.976, Seminar on Human Motion Tracking with Trevor Darrell (Fall 2007).
Continued postdoc at ICSI/UC Berkeley
Followed Trevor Darrell's move; postdoctoral scholar at International Computer Science Institute and UC Berkeley (2008–2009).
Appointed Assistant Professor at TTIC
Joined Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (TTIC) as an assistant professor (2009–2014).
Visiting professor at ETH Zurich (spring)
Served as visiting professor at ETH Zurich during the spring semester of 2010.
Workshop co-chair / program roles at major conferences
Held senior program committee roles including NIPS workshop co-chair (2012) and began many area-chair assignments across ML/vision conferences.
CVPR 2013 Best Paper Runner-Up
Received Best Paper Runner-Up at CVPR 2013 for probabilistic visual self-localization paper.
Joined editorial board of IJCV
Listed as a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Computer Vision (IJCV) around 2013.
Accepted position at University of Toronto (move Jan 2014)
Accepted a faculty position at the University of Toronto and planned move to start Jan 2014 (announcement on her web page).
Visited MIT and Microsoft Research Cambridge
Visiting MIT (May 2013) and planned visit to Microsoft Research Cambridge (Sept 2013).
Co-organized computer vision workshops on autonomous driving (ECCV/ICCV)
Co-organized workshops such as 'Computer Vision for Autonomous Driving' (ECCV 2014 and ICCV 2013) and Reconstruction Meets Recognition challenges.
Started at University of Toronto
Moved to Toronto and began her faculty role in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto (start of UofT appointment).
Received Connaught New Researcher Award
Awarded the Connaught New Researcher Award (University of Toronto honor).
Multiple accepted papers at top conferences (CVPR/ICML/NIPS)
Had multiple papers accepted at major conferences in 2014–2016; notable counts include multiple CVPR acceptances (2014–2016) and NIPS acceptances.
Google Faculty Research Award (first of three listed)
Received a Google Faculty Research Award (Feb 2015 listed on her website).
Received Ministry of Research & Innovation Early Researcher Award
Awarded Ontario Ministry of Research & Innovation Early Researcher Award (May 2015).
NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement
Received an NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement (May 2015) to support research.
Lab selected as NVIDIA NVAIL lab
Her research lab was selected as an NVIDIA NVAIL lab (listed on her website around 2016).
NVIDIA Pioneers of AI Award (GTC16) and DGX-1 hardware
Received NVIDIA Pioneers of AI Award at GTC 2016 and was provided a DGX-1 system.
Teaching major UofT courses on ML and autonomous driving
Taught courses at UofT including CSC 411 (Intro to Machine Learning), CSC 2541 (Visual Perception for Autonomous Driving) and others (2014–2017 listings).
Keynote & tutorial invitations (BMVC 2016, ICLR 2016)
Invited to give keynotes and tutorials such as BMVC 2016 (keynote) and ICLR 2016 (lecture on Deep Structured Models).
Awarded Canada Research Chair in Machine Learning and Computer Vision
Granted a Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Machine Learning and Computer Vision (Feb 2016). She later resigned this chair to join Uber.
Amazon Academic Research Award
Received an Amazon Academic Research Award (Dec 2016).
Uber commits funding to Vector Institute (co-founded by Urtasun)
Uber made a multi-year, multi-million-dollar commitment to Toronto's Vector Institute, which Urtasun co-founded; Uber hired dozens of researchers for the Toronto hub.
Best Paper Runner-Up at CVPR 2017
Received Best Paper Runner-Up Award at CVPR 2017 for the polyRNN paper.
Resigned Canada Research Chair to join industry (Uber)
Resigned CRC appointment to take the Uber ATG role (noted on her CV / web materials when joining Uber in May 2017).
Received third Google Faculty Research Award
Awarded her third Google Faculty Research Award (Feb 2017 as listed).
Awarded NSERC E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship
Received the NSERC E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship for mid-career scientists (Feb 2017); ceremony included Prime Minister and Governor General photos.
Joined Uber ATG Toronto as Head / Chief Scientist
Joined Uber (Advanced Technologies Group) to lead a Toronto-based self-driving research team; worked 4 days/week at Uber and 1 day/week at U of T; brought eight students with her.
Named Chatelaine Woman of the Year & Adweek influencer (2018)
Selected as one of Chatelaine Women of the Year 2018 and named among Toronto's top influencers by Adweek.
Program Chair of CVPR 2018
Served as Program Chair for the premier computer vision conference CVPR 2018.
Received Fallona Family Research Award
Received the Fallona Family Research Award for interdisciplinary work (April 2018).
UPNA Alumni Award
Received UPNA (Universidad Pública de Navarra) Alumni Award (Oct 2018).
Plenary Speaker at ICRA 2019
Gave the plenary talk 'A Future with Affordable Self-driving Vehicles' at ICRA 2019.
Tutorial 'All About Self-driving' at CVPR 2020
Delivered a major tutorial on self-driving technology at CVPR 2020.
Publications & conference acceptances while at Waabi
Continued high-volume publication record (multiple papers at CORL, ICCV, IROS, ICRA, ICLR, NeurIPS across 2019–2021 noted on web page).
Left Uber ATG and founded Waabi Innovation (Waabi)
Departed Uber in 2021 and launched Waabi Innovation to develop AI-first self-driving trucks and vehicles; became Founder & CEO.
Waabi research group and hiring milestone
As founder & CEO, scaled research group and hired former students and staff from academic and industry roles (ongoing milestone in 2021).
Waabi raises US$83.5 million
Raised US$83.5M for Waabi roughly four months after leaving Uber (reported June 2021).
Waabi Driver begins working with Uber Freight (10-year deal)
In September 2023 Waabi's AI-powered Waabi Driver began operating with Uber Freight in Dallas and Houston under a reported 10-year partnership to scale autonomous trucking.
Profiled as high-fee keynote speaker (industry listing)
Speaker bureau listing shows estimated live speaking fee range of US$100,000–US$200,000 (public profile entry).
Appointed to the Order of Ontario
Named an appointee to the Order of Ontario (January 2024).
Featured on CNBC 'Changemakers' 2024
Profiled on CNBC's 2024 Changemakers list highlighting women transforming business, noting Waabi's progress deploying autonomous trucks.
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