– I was surprised and delighted because this award is a clear indication that the Norwegian AI community realises how important statistics, probability theory, uncertainty calculations and computer science are for research into AI (Artificial Intelligence), says Frigessi.
When awarding the prize, the NORA Committee wrote that Frigessi has an outstanding list of publications, achieving the maximum level of influence both in Norway and internationally by means of his leading research centres and his education of students.
Algorithms are the means
Frigessi leads one of the Centres of Excellence, Integreat, and is professor at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences. Integreat is an interdisciplinary centre with members of staff affiliated to the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Humanities at UiO, in addition to the Norwegian Computing Centre and the University of Tromsø.
Frigessi began his research career as a mathematician with a burning desire to help improve the world and the life of its people:
Desired influence
– This was my goal, which I hoped to achieve with the help of statistics. Reality consists of data. I wanted to gain more influence by using algorithms, devising models to describe reality and inventing new methods that can be justified from a theoretical point of view – these are the things I can do. And this is what KI is about! I am still very glad I made that choice.
The supervision of students is something very close to his heart and Frigessi is proud of his PhD students:
– There are two PhD students in our group who have submitted excellent theses. Both of them developed important new ideas and their algorithms have been tested on breast cancer and leukemia data, with remarkable and promising results.
Frigessi played an important role during the pandemic
During the pandemic, there were many academics from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) and the Norwegian Directorate of Health who became famous public figures almost overnight because we saw them on TV.
One of the many people who played an important role in the wings was Frigessi.
– He was a key player during the pandemic because in collaboration with FHI, he worked to predict the course of covid in society and to estimate the need for intensive care, explains his colleague, professor Manuela Zucknick at the Department of Biostatistics at IMB.
Looking to the future
Work is now in progress to further develop AI with a view to making it better and more useful.
– At Integreat, we are planning to develop new methods and theories which will help to make AI more accurate, sustainable, understandable and fair. New methods and algorithms are motivated by the challenges facing society and academics from the field of biomedicine play a very important role. Our results will help to make AI a more reliable, stable and accurate instrument for use in clinical medicine and in the medical sector that builds a bridge between basic research and clinical medicine, says Frigessi.