PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Audrey Durand

Audrey Durand is an AI researcher at Université Laval whose work develops interactive-learning and reinforcement-learning methods for health applications. She earned engineering degrees at Laval, completed postdoctoral research at McGill and Mila, and joined the Laval faculty in 2019. A 2019 paper she coauthored applied normalizing flows to reinforcement-learning exploration; she received a Canada CIFAR AI Chair in 2019, and a 2025 AAAI paper she coauthored studied planning under partial observability. In 2025, she won the AI in Research – AI Researcher of the Year award. As of October 2026, she is an associate professor at Laval, with funded work on agentic AI evaluation and AI-supported emergency-triage research.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 2009–2019

    Degrees and a Mila postdoc

    She earns a B.Sc. in computer engineering at Université Laval in 2009, an M.Sc. in electrical engineering in 2011, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 2018. Her postdoctoral research takes place at McGill University and Mila from 2017 to 2019.

  2. 2019

    Assistant professor at Laval

    She joins Université Laval in 2019 as an assistant professor in its Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

  3. 2019

    Normalizing flows for exploration

    A 2019 paper she coauthors, “Leveraging exploration in off-policy algorithms via normalizing flows,” extends soft actor-critic with normalizing flows to improve exploration in continuous-control tasks.

  4. 2019

    A Canada CIFAR AI Chair

    In 2019, she receives a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at Université Laval.

  5. 2025

    Planning under partial observability

    She coauthors an AAAI paper with Randy Lefebvre that studies how the reinforcement-learning discount factor affects bias and variance in a Markov decision process. Their results support the view that a shorter planning horizon may help under partial observability.

  6. 2025

    AI Researcher of the Year

    She wins one of three AI in Research – AI Researcher of the Year awards at the 2025 Women in AI Summit & Awards North America. In 2025, she serves as research lead for the AI Methods and Data Processing axis at Université Laval’s Institut intelligence et données.

  7. 2026

    Interactive learning for health

    In 2026, her research centers on interactive learning, where a model's data-collection process is influenced by the model, and reinforcement-learning applications for health.

  8. As of October 2026

    Associate professor at Laval

    She is an associate professor in Université Laval's Faculty of Science and Engineering. Her current funded projects include evaluating agentic AI/GenAI in critical tasks and REDIRECT-IA, a proposal for an AI-supported emergency-triage reorientation application.

Career

  1. Since 2019Université LavalAssistant Professor, Research lead for the AI Methods and Data Processing axis
  2. 2017–2019McGill UniversityPostdoctoral researcher
  3. 2017–2019MilaPostdoctoral researcher

Education

  1. 2018Université LavalPh.D. in electrical engineering
  2. 2011Université LavalM.Sc. in electrical engineering
  3. 2009Université LavalB.Sc. in computer engineering

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Université Laval. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Université Laval. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  3. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Université Laval. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  4. 20% of people at companies who shape AI also hold a university role, led by Google and Stanford UniversityIncludes McGill University. We estimate that 539 of the 6,766 people with a known current organization (8%) hold both a university role and a company role, including 20% of people at companies and 13% of people at universities.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Profil | Audrey Durand audrey-durand.fsg.ulaval.ca. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Audrey Durand : un modèle qui ose foncer et saisir les possibilités fsg.ulaval.ca. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Leveraging exploration in off-policy algorithms via normalizing flows arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Quatre chaires en intelligence artificielle - Faculté des sciences et de génie de l'Université Laval fsg.ulaval.ca. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. On Shallow Planning Under Partial Observability | Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence ojs.aaai.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. WOMEN LEADING AI: ANNOUNCING THE 2025 WAI AWARDS NORTH AMERICA WINNERS womeninai.co. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. La professeure Audrey Durand reçoit un prix AI In Research – CRDM crdm.ulaval.ca. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Audrey Durand | Mila mila.quebec. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Audrey Durand, figure de proue de l'IA au Québec quebecscience.qc.ca. Checked 20 October 2026.
  10. Audrey Durand | Répertoire du corps professoral | Université Laval ulaval.ca. Checked 20 October 2026.