The Grant
Lab Scientific Director, Dr. Rosella is one of four recipients of the Connaught Global Challenge Award, announced July 20, 2018. The Connaught Fund (named after the Connaught Laboratories where, in 1921, Frederick Banting and Charles Best discovered insulin) is an internal award which supports new collaborations involving leading U of T researchers and students across a range of disciplines, as well as innovators and thought leaders from corresponding non-academic sectors.
This year’s grant, valued at $1-million, is supporting four major research initiatives here at UofT, in areas as diverse as crypto-economic blockchain technology, and the use of theology in building more socially inclusive societies.
The fund will help the four chosen scholars jump-start their new research-oriented academic programs, and give them a solid financial base from which they may launch their inquiries into these challenging and complicated global problems.
AI and Public Health
Dr. Rosella’s portion of the fund will go towards launching a global network to advance innovative research and training in predictive analytics to address pressing global population health challenges.
Her multidisciplinary team will create two innovation hubs. The first will develop and test artificial intelligence (AI) approaches for population risk prediction, and integrate these predictive models into health decision-making. The second team will focus on how to best integrate this knowledge using prescriptive analytics.
Dr. Rosella’s team of U of T researchers includes: Ajay Agrawal and Avi Goldfarb, from the Rotman School of Management, Timothy Chan and Scott Sanner, from the department of mechanical and industrial engineering, and Anna Goldenberg, from the department of computer science, as well as the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
The establishment and generosity of this fund will doubtless ensure a steady growth of important, globally-impactful research here at UofT in the coming years.
Congratulations to all recipients of the award!