PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Christian Gagné

Christian Gagné is an AI researcher whose work spans evolutionary computation, deep learning and computer vision. He earned three engineering degrees at Université Laval, completed a postdoctoral stay at INRIA Saclay and the University of Lausanne, and joined Laval’s electrical and computer engineering faculty in 2008. With Julie Beaulieu and Marc Parizeau, he shared GECCO’s 2002 best-paper award for evolutionary lens design. He coauthored the DEAP framework in 2012 and a paper on GALA for test-time adaptation in April 2025. CIFAR renewed his Canada-CIFAR AI Chair with seven other Mila members in October 2025; as of October 2026, he is a full professor at Laval, directs IID, holds the chair and is an associate academic member at Mila.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 2000–2005

    Three engineering degrees

    He earns a B.Eng. in computer engineering at Université Laval in 2000, an M.Sc. in electrical engineering in 2003, and a PhD in electrical engineering in 2005.

  2. 2002

    A GECCO lens-design award

    With Julie Beaulieu and Marc Parizeau, he wins GECCO’s 2002 Evolvable Hardware best-paper award for “Lens System Design and Re-Engineering with Evolutionary Algorithms.”

  3. 2005–2008

    Postdoctoral and industry research

    He completes a joint postdoctoral stay at INRIA Saclay and the University of Lausanne in 2005–2006. He works as an industrial research associate from 2006 to 2008.

  4. 2008–2013

    Assistant and associate professor

    At Université Laval, he becomes an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2008 and an associate professor in 2013.

  5. 2012

    DEAP for evolutionary computation

    He coauthors “DEAP: Evolutionary Algorithms Made Easy” in 2012, a paper that presents an open-source evolutionary-computation framework for rapid prototyping with explicit algorithms and transparent data structures.

  6. April 2025

    GALA for test-time adaptation

    He coauthors “A Layer Selection Approach to Test Time Adaptation,” published in April 2025. The paper proposes GALA, a layer-selection criterion that identifies beneficial updates and filters unreliable samples with noisy gradients.

  7. October 2025

    Canada-CIFAR chair renewal

    CIFAR renews his Canada-CIFAR AI Chair in October 2025 alongside seven other Mila members.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor and IID director

    As of October 2026, he is a full professor in Université Laval’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, directs the Institute Intelligence and Data, holds a Canada-CIFAR AI Chair and is an associate academic member at Mila. His research topics include computer vision, deep learning and representation learning.

Career

  1. Since 2008Université LavalAssistant Professor, Associate Professor
  2. NowMilaAssociate Academic Member
  3. 2005–2006INRIA SaclayPostdoctoral Researcher
  4. 2005–2006University of LausannePostdoctoral Researcher

Education

  1. 2005Université LavalB.Eng., M.Sc., PhD

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 Christian Gagné. 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. Universities (31%) and startups and other companies (25%) employ the largest shares of 2020–2026 entrantsIncludes Mila. Among 819 people whose first recorded role started in 2020–2026 and who have a known current organization, 60% work in commercial sectors (25% at startups and other companies, 23% at frontier labs and 13% at big tech, with 9 in two), and 31% work at universities, compared with 66% for earlier entrants.
  3. Companies supply the most prior-work hires at 7 of the 9 frontier AI labsIncludes Mila. Our estimates of the organizations where 550 people worked directly before joining 9 frontier AI labs across 620 career transitions, comparing the main feeder organizations per lab.
  4. Of 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google, 446 work there nowIncludes Mila. Our estimates of where the 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google and Google DeepMind work now: 446 at Google and 452 across 278 other organizations.

Colleagues

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

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Christian Gagné yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Christian Gagne | Vision LVSN vision.fsg.ulaval.ca. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. GECCO 2002 - Awards isgec.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. Christian Gagné - Christian Gagné’s Website christiangagne.net. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. DEAP: Evolutionary Algorithms Made Easy jmlr.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. A Layer Selection Approach to Test Time Adaptation | Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence ojs.aaai.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. Professor David Scott Krueger Appointed Canada CIFAR AI Chair | Mila mila.quebec. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Christian Gagné | IID web.iid.ulaval.ca. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. Christian Gagné | Mila mila.quebec. Checked 22 October 2026.