Nicolas Papernot (photo by Matthew Tierney)
Nicolas Papernot wins 2025 Steacie Prize
Published: January 30, 2026
Nicolas Papernot, an associate professor in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science, has been named the 2025 recipient of the Steacie Prize.
One of Canada's most prestigious early-career research awards, the Steacie Prize is given annually to an engineer or scientist, 40 years of age or younger, who has made notable contributions to research in Canada.
Papernot, a pioneer in the development of adversarial examples in machine learning, was honoured for his groundbreaking work advancing the security, privacy and trustworthiness of machine learning algorithms.
“While still early in his career, Professor Nicolas Papernot has already made an extraordinary impact through his leadership in addressing the security and privacy challenges around machine learning and AI,” said Christopher Yip, dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “On behalf of the faculty, I congratulate him on being recognized as one of Canada’s most promising science and engineering scholars.”
Papernot was recruited to join the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence in 2019 as part of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy.
