Craig Jones, an expert in the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning to medical imaging, is coming to the University of Alberta as the Killam Memorial Professor.
Jones, who joins the Department of Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Computer Science, has more than 30 years of experience in medical image processing, AI, and neural network-based technologies.
“I strive to ensure that my innovations translate effectively into real-world healthcare settings, ultimately supporting better decision-making and patient outcomes,” says Jones.
“I am also committed to mentoring the next generation of researchers and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration across the medical AI field.”
His research has focused on advances in artificial intelligence and deep learning in medical imaging to improve disease diagnosis, monitoring, and clinical decision support, including building tools to detect pancreatic cancer early from ultrasound scans, automatically grading vascular damage in the eye, and using 3D brain imaging to more safely guide neurosurgeons.
Jones is also director of the Center for Advancing Medical AI, part of Novagen Research, a nonprofit initiative spun out of Axle Informatics, focused on collaborative research in medical imaging and large-scale language model applications.
From 2016 to 2019, Jones also worked briefly at the Space Telescope Science Institute, where he created and implemented image processing algorithms for the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope.
Along with top AI experts from around the world, Jones serves as a scientific advisor and educator for SPARK Academy, where he has taught the fundamentals of imaging to more than 400 students from Africa, Nepal, and Southeast Asia.
Born in Canada, Jones earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and mathematics from Simon Fraser University, a master’s degree in medical biophysics from the University of Western Ontario, and a doctorate in physics from the University of British Columbia. He began his career in magnetic resonance imaging and created an automated algorithm for lesion segmentation in multiple sclerosis.
“Welcoming a talented researcher in Craig Jones as the Killam Memorial Professor is an important milestone for the Faculty of Engineering. From data processing for the James Webb Space Telescope to pioneering AI tools for the early detection of cancer, his career is a testament to the world-class interdisciplinary expertise we strive to bring to the University of Alberta,” said Ivan Fair, associate dean of the Faculty of Engineering.
“I have no doubt that his presence will accelerate our mission to develop engineered solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges in healthcare.”
About the Killam Memorial Chair
The Killam Memorial Chair was created by Dorothy Killam in her will before her death in 1965, along with a series of national annual scholarships and academic awards, whose purpose was to attract international scholars to the University of America and “contribute to building Canada’s future by encouraging advanced research.”
The Killam Memorial Fund supports at least two Killam Memorial Chairs in science or engineering fields at the U of A. Jones was sworn in as one of two commemorative chairs, along with physicist Valeri Frolov. The U of A was one of only five institutions selected as the beneficiary of the $500 million endowment.
