Skip to content
CIFAR header logo
fr
menu_mobile_logo_alt
  • Our Impact
    • Why CIFAR?
    • Impact Clusters
    • News
    • CIFAR Strategy
    • Nurturing a Resilient Earth
    • AI Impact
    • Donor Impact
    • CIFAR 40
  • Events
    • Public Events
    • Invitation-only Meetings
  • Programs
    • Research Programs
    • Pan-Canadian AI Strategy
    • Next Generation Initiatives
  • People
    • Fellows & Advisors
    • CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars
    • Canada CIFAR AI Chairs
    • AI Strategy Leadership
    • Solution Network Members
    • Leadership
    • Staff Directory
  • Support Us
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Awards
    • Partnerships
    • Publications & Reports
    • Careers
    • Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
    • Statement on Institutional Neutrality
    • Research Security
  • fr

2000

Chaviva Hošek becomes CIFAR's president & CEO

Prior to Hošek's appointment, she served as the director of policy and research in the Prime Minister's Office; the minister of housing for the Province of Ontario; president and executive member of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women; and a professor of English literature at the University of Toronto. Under her leadership, CIFAR expands its investigation of early childhood development while mobilizing new knowledge for greater societal impact.

Chaviva Hošek

"Under Chaviva's leadership over the last 11 years, the Institute has developed as Canada's premier centre for advanced research, linking top Canadian researchers to each other and to the world's best."

David Dodge, CIFAR Board of Directors, former Governor of the Bank of Canada

2002

CIFAR turns 20:
The Next Big Questions

As part of its 20-year anniversary celebration, CIFAR launches the Young Explorers Prize, given to the top 20 scientists under 40 in Canada. Victoria M. Kaspi, now the director of the Gravity & the Extreme Universe program, was among its recipients.

The award is a testament to CIFAR’s focus on the next generation of researchers for years to come, including the launch of the CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars program in 2016.

Read the of REACH to find out more.

"When I look at the people who have won our Young Explorers Prize, I am filled with hope and excitement."

Chaviva Hošek, CIFAR President and CEO (2001-2012)

Spring 2002 English issue of REACH

2004

CIFAR's talent leads Globe and Mail's Starting from Zero series on child development

Canadian national paper the Globe and Mail publishes a series on early child development, Starting from Zero, heavily featuring CIFAR researchers in the Experience-Based Brain and Biological Development (now renamed Child & Brain Development). Read more in the Globe and Mail.

2005

CIFAR researcher Avner Greif introduces novel ‘Game Theory’ application

Avner Greif, who was a fellow in the Institutions, Organizations & Growth program, introduces game theory into the study of economic history, and shows how to explain the emergence of institutions and their decline as a result of strategic interactions between economic and political factors. His book, Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade becomes required reading in the field.

Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade book cover

2007

Roger Myerson awarded Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

Roger B. Myerson, former advisor for the program Institutions, Organizations & Growth, shares the prize with Leonid Hurwicz and Eric S. Maskin "for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory." A major breakthrough in the modern economic analysis of institutions and markets, it has had lasting influence in the design of economic policies around the world.

Roger B. Myerson

2008

CIFAR researchers help find two-million-year-old life under ice

Researchers in CIFAR’s Earth System Evolution program help discover life in a lake that has been trapped under a glacier for nearly two million years. This discovery hints at the possibility of life in other inhospitable environments, such as Mars or Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa.

Photo: Mars as seen by the ESA Rosetta spacecraft in 2007 (credit: BY-SA IGO 3.0)

Mars as seen by the ESA Rosetta spacecraft in 2007

2008

CIFAR launches Junior Fellow Academy

Continuing CIFAR's commitment to fostering the next generation of innovative thinkers, the Junior Fellow Academy, which ran until 2015, offered early-career researchers the unique opportunity to participate in CIFAR's global research network and be mentored by some of the world's best researchers. This program paved the way for the CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars program which launched in 2016.

"It helped me to develop my thinking around novel and important points of intersection between my own work and research pursued by other researchers which, I am sure, I would not have otherwise recognized."

Dr. Arjumand Siddiqi, Professor and Division Head of Epidemiology, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto and Canada Research Chair in Population Health Equity (CIFAR Junior Fellow, Successful Societies, 2008-2009, and Associate Fellow, Successful Societies, 2010-2012)

“CI(F)AR’s 20th anniversary is something that all Canadians should celebrate. Our country is home to a unique organization that is respected by the world’s greatest thinkers. There is no better way to mark this occasion than by recognizing the work and the promise of our country’s best young researchers.”

Thomas E. Kierans, CIFAR Chairman (2009)

2008

Legacy: CIFAR receives its first endowment gift

Philanthropist Beryl Ivey names CIFAR as a beneficiary of her estate. In life, Ivey was known for her curiosity and pursuit of excellence. Through her legacy gift, Ivey remains invested in addressing the most important questions facing science and humanity.

2009

AI world standard: CIFAR-10 dataset

The CIFAR-10 dataset is a collection of photographs that can be used to train machine learning and computer vision algorithms. CIFAR-10 and later CIFAR-100 became a world standard dataset and one of the most widely used datasets for machine learning research, containing 60,000 colour images.

CIFAR-10 dataset
CIFAR header logo

MaRS Centre, West Tower
661 University Ave., Suite 505
Toronto, ON M5G 1M1 Canada

Contact Us
Media
Careers
Accessibility Policies
Supporters
Financial Reports
Subscribe

  • © Copyright 2025 CIFAR. All Rights Reserved.
  • Charitable Registration Number: 11921 9251 RR0001
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy
  • Sitemap

Subscribe

Stay up to date on news & ideas from CIFAR.

This website stores cookies on your computer. These cookies are used to collect information about how you interact with our website and allow us to remember you. We use this information in order to improve and customize your browsing experience and for analytics and metrics about our visitors both on this website and other media. To find out more about the cookies we use, see our Privacy Policy.
Accept Learn more