University Ambassador Program

Name: Jan Kwapisz, Ph.D.  

Title: Assistant Professor

Location: University of Warsaw, Poland   

AI, Deep Learning, and Quantum Gravity Expert  

LinkedIn profile: Jan Kwapisz, Ph.D.

Jan Kwapisz is a visionary leader in AI innovation and serves as the CTO of OMNIVISER, which spearheads the development of advanced AI solutions to optimize decision-making and drive efficiency. Holding a Ph.D. in quantum gravity from the University of Warsaw, Jan has lectured at prestigious institutions including MIT, Cambridge, and Oxford. He is a platinum NVIDIA Ambassador.

How did you first learn about the Deep Learning Institute (DLI)?

I first learned about DLI through NVIDIA’s seller partner in Poland. I quickly started to train for my first instructor qualifications. Now I hold nine of them!

Why did you decide to become a University Ambassador?

Becoming a University Ambassador was a natural progression for me. I’ve always been passionate about teaching and helping others succeed, and I saw the DLI Ambassador Program as a perfect opportunity to bring cutting-edge AI education to students in Poland. Especially I love the NVIDIA platform. For students, everything is so seamless there!

What impact do the DLI workshops have on your students?

DLI workshops have a transformative effect on my students. They provide a hands-on, project-oriented experience that bridges the gap between academic learning and industry expectations. Students gain the confidence to tackle real-world AI challenges, which often leads to new research ideas or career opportunities in tech. Some of my former students work for my company or do their master’s with me.

What is a typical response from students who attend your DLI workshops?

The response from students has been overwhelmingly positive. Many appreciate the practical approach of the workshops and often comment on how much they learn in just a few sessions.

What impact does participation in the Ambassador Program have on your professional career? 

The program has expanded my network, opened doors to collaborations, and significantly enhanced my teaching and technical skills.

Is there anything else you would like to share with regards to DLI or your role as an ambassador?

I’d like to emphasize the unique value of the DLI Ambassador Program in fostering a collaborative and innovative environment. The support from NVIDIA and the DLI team has been exceptional, making it easier to make a meaningful impact. I am excited to continue this journey and contribute to growing the AI ecosystem in Poland and beyond.

Name: Dr. Sina Mostafanejad

Title: Lead Software Scientist

Location: The Molecular Sciences Software Institute, Virginia Tech, USA

Associated universities:  The Molecular Sciences Software Institute (MolSSI, Virginia Tech)

LinkedIn profile: Dr. Sina Mostafanejad

Dr. Sina Mostafanejad is the lead software scientist in high-performance computing (HPC) education, artificial intelligence, and machine learning at the Molecular Sciences Software Institute (MolSSI). He’s also a certified instructor for HPC and machine learning at Intel. As a research scientist, Sina has contributed to major commercial and open-source quantum chemistry software packages, such as Q-Chem and Psi4, and mentored more than ten MolSSI Software Fellows. His most recent efforts involve the development of a machine learning software infrastructure for the Simulation Environment for Atomistic and Molecular Modeling (SEAMM) project and the MolSSI Chem-AI project.
 

Why did you want to become a DLI University Ambassador?

The DLI University Ambassador Program has become a role-model in education at the intersection of academia and industry. Being a part of this exciting and concerted effort gave me a unique opportunity to serve the scientific community along with the most talented and intelligent team of scientists and engineers.

What impact do the workshops have on your students?

The DLI workshop and cloud resources provide an excellent framework for concise and topic-oriented training which allow students, post-doctoral researchers, faculty, and industrial engineers to learn the skill sets they need in a convenient and time-efficient way. Testimonials from our NVIDIA DLI workshops continue to be extremely positive. Our students believe the workshop certificates have significantly helped them in their daily research and professional career development.

What impact does participation in the University Ambassador Program have on your professional career?  

The DLI University Ambassador Program not only gave me a platform to connect with other national and international instructors but also provided an opportunity for our MolSSI Education Program to collaborate with NVIDIA experts to write some of our research grant proposals for professional academic training. During our partnership with DLI, we delivered the workshops in multiple national scientific venues across the US including the Fundamentals of Deep Learning workshop at the American Chemical Society in Fall 2022 in Chicago and the upcoming ACS national meeting in Spring 2023 in Indianapolis. Being engaged in routine and active technical discussion with the brightest minds and most enthusiastic researchers across this nation has helped me keep my skills sharp, and I remain excited about every opportunity that comes next in this journey.

Is there any other aspect of the DLI you would like to share?

The DLI Teaching Kits Program also provides a comprehensive set of teaching materials alongside self-paced courses and the instructor-led workshops. The hands-on training materials, designed by experts, and cloud computing resources have enriched our MolSSI-led community workshops and made our Industrial Training Program a seamless experience. DLI allows instructors to focus on training the next generation of researchers and scientists and prepare them for tackling cutting-edge and challenging problems in science and engineering instead of getting bogged down on the technicalities of preparing the training resources.

Name: Peng Jia

Title: Associate Professor. College of Physics and Optoelectronics

Location: Taiyuan University of Technology, China

Associated universities: Taiyuan University of Technology

LinkedIn profile: Peng Jia

Peng Jia is an associate professor in the College of Physics and Optoelectronics, Taiyuan University of Technology since 2018. His main interests are Smart Astronomical Instruments and Data Processing Methods, which include digital twins of optical telescopes, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and citizen science. He has published over 70 academic papers and has over10 patents in digital twin of optics systems and data processing methods. He has received several awards including the Science and Technology Progress Award of Shanxi Province (second prize), the Talent of Shanxi Province and the Excellence of Young Astronomer in the Information working committee, Chinese Astronomical Society.
 

How did you learn about The Deep Learning Institute (DLI)?  

I was first introduced to NVIDIA in 2016 through a CUDA research program when I was studying simulation of optics systems at Durham University. In 2018, I returned to the Department of Instrumentation, Taiyuan University of Technology, China and carried out independent research and teaching in digital twins of optic systems and machine learning algorithms. However, I found it difficult to find reliable and enough computing resources to support my work. I then learned about educator resources available from DLI and applied to become a University Ambassador, teaching deep learning and computer vision. Using the resources and material provided by DLI, I have trained over 600 students.

How does DLI enhance your other work?

In 2022, a new Intelligent Sensing Engineering degree was founded, and several lessons are designed based on the teaching kits and DLI workshops. Currently, my group is developing citizen science projects and teaching material for astronomy data processing methods with machine learning algorithms using the resources provided by DLI.  The teaching resources are designed with industry background and at an academic level, which provides me with insights to better design frameworks for different applications, such as data processing pipelines for data obtained by different telescopes.

Name: Manuel Ujaldon Martinez

Title: Full Professor en Universidad de Málaga

Location: Universidad de Malaga, Spain

Associated universities: University of Malaga

LinkedIn profile: Manuel Ujaldon Martinez

Manuel Ujaldon is full professor of computer architecture at the University of Malaga (Spain). His main research interests are high-performance and low-power GPGPU computing for image processing, biomedical applications and evolutionary computation. Prof. Ujaldon was a predoctoral and postdoctoral researcher at the Computer Science Dept. of the University of Maryland, visiting researcher at Biomedical Informatics Dept. of the Ohio State University (USA, 2003-08) and conjoint senior lecturer at the University of Newcastle (Australia, 2012-15).

He has published 8 books on computer architecture and around 100 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and conferences. Manuel was awarded CUDA Fellow by Nvidia in 2012, having taught since then more than 150 activities related to GPU computing in 23 countries, including more than 70 invited talks and tutorials in ACM/IEEE conferences.

How did you first hear about the NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute (DLI)?  

As part of the CUDA Fellow group selected by NVIDIA in 2012, I was already engaged as an NVIDIA instructor for several years before DLI was created.

How does DLI contribute to your career in academia?

I find the role of DLI Ambassador to be very rewarding. I have been invited to teach in prominent universities and talk at prestigious conferences around the world which has enabled me to engage with excellent students and colleagues of all backgrounds. For a cosmopolitan and enthusiastic instructor like me, it exposes me to diverse cultures and communities, permitting me to discover fascinating countries and expand my teaching skills in many ways. Every DLI workshop that I organize is different, challenging and refreshing my professional career. This is a job that is hard to get tired of!    

Tell us about the DLI workshops you have delivered outside of Spain.

I have had many opportunities to teach abroad as an ambassador, mainly because of my reputation as an experienced NVIDIA instructor. Since 2012, I’ve taught over 100 CUDA workshops and tutorials in   ACM/IEEE conferences worldwide. Colleagues continue to invite me to participate in these activities since accelerated computing has become such a hot topic in the world of HPC. With DLI, we have much better infrastructure to run tutorials and labs, which make the workshops much more effective for our students. The University of Malaga has a long tradition of having a proactive student exchange program. Some of these programs include exchanging teaching experiences. From this, I have been very fortunate to be able to visit prominent universities in Africa and one in Asia over the last couple of years:

• Namibia University of Science and Technology (Namibia - October, 2021).
• Durban University of Technology (South Africa - July, 2022).
• University of Cape Town (#1 University in Africa - August, 2022).
• University of Kathmandu (Nepal - November, 2021).
  
  

In all these experiences, I’ve found students to be fascinated by the topics, receptive to the training and excited to receive NVIDIA Certificates of competency by an internationally experienced instructor. Overall, people were very grateful with my efforts and the hospitality was outstanding during my travels, enabling me to accumulate personal experiences like no other journey has done.

there anything else you would like to share about your experience with DLI?

I would like to emphasize the utility of teaching kits as a time-saving tool for preparing classes, optimizing the teaching effort and maximizing engagement from students, who look at Nvidia as the reliable source for preparing them to face the challenge of being hired in high-tech companies. Cloud services in AWS are also a fantastic resource for student to execute their first codes right away, without suffering from installing hardware and setting up software, drivers, middleware, libraries, etc.