PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

David Rolnick

David Rolnick is an AI researcher whose work applies machine learning to climate change. He earned a PhD in applied mathematics at MIT in 2018 and joined McGill as an assistant professor and Mila as a core academic member in 2020. At Penn, he chaired Climate Change AI and coauthored the 2019 report “Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning.” He coauthored ICML’s 2024 Best Paper “Stealing part of a production language model” and received an AI2050 Early Career Fellowship in 2024 and a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2025. As of October 2026, he is an associate professor and Canada CIFAR AI Chair at McGill and Mila.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 2018

    An MIT applied mathematics PhD

    At MIT, he completes a PhD in applied mathematics in 2018, co-advised by Nir Shavit, Max Tegmark, and Ed Boyden.

  2. 2019

    Climate Change AI and its report

    Climate Change AI is founded in June 2019. By November 2019, he is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and chairs the initiative. He coauthors “Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning,” a paper on machine-learning applications from smart grids to disaster management.

  3. 2020–2021

    McGill and a CIFAR AI Chair

    In 2020, he joins McGill's School of Computer Science as an assistant professor and becomes a core academic member at Mila. In 2021, he becomes a Canada CIFAR AI Chair. MIT Technology Review names him to its 2021 Innovators Under 35 list.

  4. 2024

    An AI2050 Early Career Fellowship

    He is named a 2024 AI2050 Early Career Fellow. His project develops AI-based superresolution tools for high-resolution climate and weather data from low-resolution inputs.

  5. 2024

    An ICML Best Paper

    He coauthors “Stealing part of a production language model,” which wins ICML's 2024 Best Paper award. The work recovers a transformer's embedding projection from typical API access and extracts OpenAI's Ada and Babbage projection matrices for under US$20.

  6. 2025

    An Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship

    In 2025, he receives an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship.

  7. As of October 2026

    Professor at McGill and Mila

    As of October 2026, he is an associate professor and Canada CIFAR AI Chair in McGill's School of Computer Science and at Mila.

  8. As of October 2026

    Climate AI leadership

    As of October 2026, he is a co-founder and chair of Climate Change AI, co-leads the NSF-NSERC Global Center on AI and Biodiversity Change, and is Scientific Co-director of Sustainability in the Digital Age.

Career

  1. Since 2020McGill UniversityAssistant Professor
  2. Since 2020MilaCore Academic Member
  3. Since 2019Climate Change AICo-founder, Chair
  4. From 2019University of PennsylvaniaPostdoctoral Fellow

Education

  1. 2018Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPhD

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 David Rolnick. 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. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes McGill University. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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

  1. Three Faculty Members Join the School of Computer Science cs.mcgill.ca. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. About Climate Change AI climatechange.ai. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Scientists join forces to tackle climate change with AI climatechange.ai. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning microsoft.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Four McGill researchers awarded prestigious AI chairs reporter.mcgill.ca. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Assistant Professor David Rolnick Named a 2021 MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35 cs.mcgill.ca. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. MIT affiliates named 2024 Schmidt Futures AI2050 Fellows idss.mit.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. David Rolnick - AI2050 ai2050.schmidtsciences.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. ICML 2024 Awards icml.cc. Checked 21 October 2026.
  10. Stealing part of a production language model icml.cc. Checked 21 October 2026.
  11. Prof. David Rolnick awarded Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship cs.mcgill.ca. Checked 21 October 2026.
  12. Bio – David Rolnick davidrolnick.com. Checked 21 October 2026.