DeepMind Fellow Profile: Sanae Lotfi
Meet Sanae Lotfi, a PhD CDS student who is one of three DeepMind Fellows joining us this academic year, 2020–2021.
DeepMind is a leading artificial intelligence research company that aims to solve real-world problems and advance scientific discovery.
“I am very honored and humbled to receive the DeepMind Fellowship. I was very fortunate to work in different environments and learn from great mentors throughout my career. I am sure that the Center for Data Science at New York University will allow me to keep doing the same. Very excited to join CDS!” — Sanae Lotfi
About Sanae’s Background:
Sanae was born in Berrechid, Morocco. She attended a preparatory program in Morocco. Then, she joined CentraleSupélec in France to complete her master’s degree in applied mathematics. During her first year at CentraleSupélec, she did a summer internship at the Electron Microscopy Laboratory in Vienna. She worked there as a research assistant and developed a strong interest in research. Thanks to her two internships in data science the following year, she decided to focus on research in machine learning.
Sanae was awarded the Hassan-II Academy of Science and Technology Award for ranking first in mathematics in the Academy’s open national competition of Science. She also received the French Government Scholarship for Excellence for ranking second in CentraleSupélec’s entrance exam for international students.
Current Focuses and Research:
Sanae is currently finishing a second master’s degree in applied mathematics at Polytechnique Montreal. She is a member of the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Data Science for Real-Time Decision-Making and the Montreal Machine Learning and Optimization group, and a past Mila member. She has recently won the McKinsey First Generation Achievement Award earlier this month. Her current research explores stochastic first and second order optimization algorithms in machine learning, with a focus on adaptive optimization methods. More broadly, her research interests include the mathematics of deep learning, statistical learning, probabilistic generative models and inference theory.
Life Outside Academics:
In her spare time, Sanae enjoys kickboxing, making origami, reading, and watching tennis.
By Ashley C. McDonald
