2026 Governor General's Gold Medal Award
October 23, 2026Computer Science Graduate Gezheng Xu Receives the Governor General’s Gold Medal
Dr. Gezheng Xu, who completed her PhD in Western’s Department of Computer Science in February 2026 under the supervision of Professors Boyu Wang and Charles Ling, has received the 2026 Governor General’s Gold Medal, one of Canada’s most prestigious academic honours.
Gezheng’s research advances the foundations of trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) by addressing how models generalize across changing environments and serve diverse populations. Combining mathematical analysis with empirical validation, she develops methods to improve reliability and fairness beyond training conditions, supporting the broader goal of making AI dependable and beneficial in real-world use.
During her doctoral studies, Gezheng published 25 peer-reviewed articles in leading international conferences and journals. Her research received Spotlight distinctions at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (2022), the International Conference on Learning Representations (2023), and the International Conference on Machine Learning (2026), highlighting the significance of her contributions. Her excellence in research and teaching also been recognized through Western’s Robert and Ruth Lumsden Graduate Award, the Fields Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, and the Graduate Student Teaching Award. Gezheng was also named a Rising Star in Foundations of AI Research by the University of Warwick and the Oxford ELLIS Unit, the only researcher from Canada to receive this recognition.
Gezheng currently continues to advance trustworthy AI at Western and will soon join the University of Oxford as a postdoctoral researcher, where she will expand its applications to scientific discovery.
