Elham E Khoda
Assistant Professor of Teaching, MDS Vancouver
"In the MDS program, we teach data science in a way that reflects the real world: diverse teams, fast timelines, and practical problems. Our students leave with both technical fluency and the collaborative mindset industry demands."
Elham grew up in West Bengal in eastern India, where he earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees in Physics. His academic journey then took him to UBC, where he pursued his PhD in experimental particle physics, working with the ATLAS experiment at CERN, where he developed algorithms to analyze the vast particle collision data in search of new particles. After completing his PhD, Elham held postdoctoral positions at the University of Washington and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), where his focus shifted toward harnessing the power of AI for scientific discovery. He worked on building accelerated machine learning algorithms for extracting insights from massive datasets in physics, astrophysics, and neuroscience. Before returning to UBC as an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the MDS program, Elham was a computational and data science researcher at the San Diego Supercomputing Center (SDSC), University of California, San Diego. Throughout his academic journey, Elham has been a passionate educator and has taught in several workshops and courses. Elham’s current interests lie at the intersection of AI, education, and accessibility. He explores how technology can be effectively integrated into higher education to enhance student learning and engagement. He is a strong advocate for open educational resources and is committed to building inclusive, diverse, and scalable tools and resources for data science and AI education.