Excellence in teaching, research and recruiting more female students top priorities

Greg Mori is the new director for Simon Fraser University’s School of Computing Science. The school ranks among the Top 50 computer science departments worldwide and No. 3 in Canada, according to the respected Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).

In the past year, two school faculty members were awarded prestigious research awards, including a Steacie Fellowship (Jiangchuan Liu) and a Canada Research Chair, Tier 1, in Big Data Science (Jian Pei).

“As school director, I’m fortunate to be taking the helm at a time when our school is recognized as one of the best in the world—with dedicated staff, inspiring teachers, and world-renowned researchers,” said Mori.

Two of my priorities are to support teaching and research excellence so we continue to be a top-ranked computer science department, and to develop programs that will improve diversity in our field.”

Currently, females account for 17 per cent of all undergraduate students, and 24 per cent of all graduate students in SFU computing science. Mori has already started to compile information on programs across North America that have successfully drawn both genders and students from non-traditional backgrounds into technology-based academic fields.

SFU computing science offers one of the most comprehensive academic programs in Canada, covering topics as diverse as computer systems to graphics and biomedical image analysis to artificial intelligence and algorithms and complexity theory.

The school maintains strong ties with industry, research organizations, and the community at large. Each year, about 80 per cent of computing science undergraduate students participate in co-op.

“Building links to external organizations allows us to expand our offering of co-op jobs, ensuring our students gain relevant skills and knowledge, and to conduct cutting-edge research that makes a difference in our economy, public health and safety, and the environment.”

Mori has just started his three-year term as school director, succeeding professor Martin Ester who held the position for five years and who is continuing with the school in both teaching and research.

Background on Greg Mori

Vancouver-born Mori joined SFU in 2004 as an assistant professor in computing science and became associate professor in 2010. He spent six months in early 2015 at Google in Mountain View, California, as a visiting scientist.

Dr. Mori is a prominent researcher in the application of machine learning to computer vision and has held many awards including the prestigious NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement and a large IARPA grant that deals with large amounts of “unstructured” video data.

Mori earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 2004 and a Bachelor of Science degree (High Distinction) in Computer Science and Mathematics from University of Toronto in 1999.