The UBC Master of Data Science programs partner computer science and statistics experts, providing the foundation for a comprehensive approach, as these two disciplines are at the very core of the emerging field of Data Science. Through active and flexible learning techniques, students will be given the opportunity to put theory into practice and to work with real-world data.
Students learn from faculty working at the forefront of their fields. Internationally respected, these leading researchers collaborate with industries, governments and organizations to develop innovative solutions and make a tangible difference to our world. These thought leaders are passionate about their work, committed to student education and eager to share their knowledge.
Meet Some of Our Faculty and Staff
All
Giuseppe Carenini, Director, MDS Programs
"One of the most unique aspects of this program is that it is designed for students whose main expertise is not in CS and Stats, but rather in other fields like life sciences, healthcare, business, and journalism; after graduation our students will be ready to effectively work as data scientist in those domains."
Joining the University of British Columbia’s Computer Science Faculty in 2004, Giuseppe Carenini has been teaching artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing, for over 15 years. In his research, Giuseppe has focused on text summarization, information visualization, and decision support, publishing over 120 peer-reviewed publications and receiving two best-paper awards – one from the UMAP 2014 conference (premier user modeling conference ) and the other from the ACM-TiiS-14 journal (top journal on Intelligent Interfaces). Giuseppe's research has been applied by companies like Microsoft, IBM, Google, Huawei and Yahoo to develop summarization techniques for product reviews and for conversational data (e.g., emails and blog), as well as basic techniques for discourse parsing and topic modelling. Giuseppe has also collaborated with local companies that aim to make data more useful in supporting complex decisions (Compass) and for public engagement (Metroquest). Currently, he is serving as the ConVISation Labs Chief Scientific Officer, with the goal of transferring his research on text analytics to the healthcare domain, in collaboration with the WelTel company
W. John Braun, Acting Co-Director and Professor, MDS Okanagan
"Over the years, I have found no truer statement than that of John Tukey which I paraphrase here: 'The best thing about being a data scientist is that you get to play in everyone's backyard.'"
W. John Braun got his Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Western Ontario in 1992. Since then, he has held positions at a number of universities, including Western for 14 years where he attained the rank of Full Professor and was Chair of the Statistics Graduate Program for 5 years. In 2014, he took the opportunity to become Head of Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics and Statistics at UBC's Okanagan campus.
He was Deputy Director of the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute and is now Director of the UBCO site for the Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery. Braun's research in statistics is motivated by scientific problems, coming from psychology, biology, medicine, engineering and physics. His methodological contributions are concerned with computational issues around uncertainty quantification and smoothing techniques. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and two books in the area of computational statistics.
Khalad Hasan, Co-Director and Assistant Professor, MDS Okanagan
"The MDS program is an exciting journey for the students as it provides them the opportunity to build a strong understanding of data science subject matters and use this knowledge out in the wild."
Khalad Hasan is an assistant professor of computer science at UBC’s Okanagan campus. His research interest is in human-computer interaction, with a focus on developing and studying novel interactions with mobile and wearable devices. More specifically, he is interested in exploring users’ needs and making an impact in their lives, specifically when it concerns interacting with large data on small devices. Before joining UBC Okanagan, Khalad worked as an NSERC postdoctoral fellow at the University of Waterloo.
Varada Kolhatkar, Co-Director and Assistant Professor of Teaching, MDS Vancouver
"With a large amount of data available in different disciplines and powerful technology at our fingertips, it is tempting to throw data and technology at problems without deeper understanding of them. This way we easily end up with misleading interpretations of the data. This program teaches you how to interpret your data responsibly and answer data-related questions in a principled way, without ignoring the limitations of the technology or the data."
Varada Kolhatkar was born and raised in Pune, India, where she completed her undergraduate degree in Computer Science. After working in industry for two years in India, she pursued her Master’s degree from the University of Minnesota Duluth and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Toronto, both in Computer Science, specializing in Computational Linguistics. Before moving to UBC, Varada spent two years at Simon Fraser University as a post-doctoral fellow, where she developed datasets and computational tools that will help keep online communities engaged in constructive discussions. Varada has diverse experience of working in industry as well as in academia with different universities, countries, and cultures. She joined MDS in October 2018 as a teaching and research postdoctoral fellow. For Varada, learning and sharing knowledge are deeply satisfying practices, expressions of who we are and what we can achieve as human beings and her goal as a teacher is to instill this satisfaction in learning and sharing knowledge by encouraging learners to challenge, to discover, to try out new things, and to think about something in a way they had never thought before.
Garrett Nicolai, Director and Assistant Professor of Teaching, MDS Computational Linguistics
"It's a really exciting time to be working in NLP. The field has been revolutionized multiple times in the past decade, and we are seeing great progress solving problems that were unfathomable in the past. I'm thrilled to be working with the MDS-CL as we prepare students to process, analyse, and model data that is increasing at an unprecedented rate."
Garrett Nicolai joined the MDS Computational Linguistics program in 2020 as a post-doctoral researcher and Capstone mentor, before becoming an Assistant Professor of Teaching. Garrett completed his MSc. in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Regina before obtaining a PhD in NLP at the University of Alberta, completing a BA in Linguistics along the way. Before coming to Vancouver, Garrett was a post-doctoral researcher at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Language and Speech Processing, working on low-resource computational morphology. His research interests lie in improving the quality of computational tools for under-resourced languages, including the construction of computational corpora for such purposes.
Tiffany Timbers, Co-Director and Associate Professor of Teaching, MDS Vancouver
"We teach cutting-edge tools and techniques that are used by data scientists out in the wild."
Tiffany Timbers received her Bachelor of Science in Biology from Carleton University in 2001, following which she completed a doctorate in neuroscience at the University of British Columbia in 2012, which focused on the genetic basis of learning and memory. After obtaining her doctorate, Tiffany carried out data-intensive postdoctoral research in behavioural and neural genomics at Simon Fraser University (published in PLoS Genetics). During this time, she also gained valuable experience teaching computational skills to students and scientists through her work with Data and Software Carpentry, the SFU scientific programming study group, and teaching a course in computation in Physical Sciences at Quest University. Tiffany began her teaching role in the MDS program at UBC in the summer of 2016.
"The MDS program is designed to give students the relevant ‘hands on’ skills they need to succeed as data scientists. The strengths of the program include the diversity of the instructors and the evolving curriculum to meet current industry needs and standards."
Ifeoma Adaji is an assistant professor of computer science at UBC's Okanagan campus. She completed her Master's degree from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, UK and her Ph.D. from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. She briefly worked in industry as a data scientist after her Ph.D. in lieu of a postdoc. Her research interests include the development of tailored persuasive technologies for social good and the use of user generated data online to understand and predict the behaviour of online users. She is also interested in Fairness, Accountability, Transparency & Ethics in AI (FATE).
Prajeet Bajpai, Postdoctoral Research and Teaching Fellow, MDS Vancouver
“We are collecting more data than ever before. Tools from data science and machine learning are also growing more accessible, making it easier to mine this data for our benefit, but also making it easier to draw false conlcusions and make costly mistakes based on bad science. UBC’s MDS Program is designed to give students a solid foundation in the fundamentals of data science, enabling them to generate reliable and reproducible insights from data and to understand the ethical implications of their work.”
Prajeet received his Master's and PhD in Mathematics at the University of British Columbia and his Bachelor's degree at Dartmouth College. As a PhD student, he had the opportunity to work as a TA for MDS, and joined the program full-time as a Postdoctoral Teaching and Learning Fellow in 2024.
Katie Burak, Assistant Professor of Teaching, MDS Vancouver
“The MDS program provides students the tools they need to tackle real-world problems in a variety of industries. Focusing on both theoretical and applied aspects of data science, the faculty at MDS strive to prepare students to be successful outside of the classroom.”
Katie completed her PhD in Statistics at the University of Alberta where her academic work focused on increasing the computational efficiency of nonparametric approaches such as bootstrapping using concentration of measure. Prior to that, she completed her undergraduate and master’s degrees in Mathematics and Statistics, respectively. Katie has a passion for statistical outreach and education and has organized a variety of outreach events in her community. Additionally, she is interested in investigating modern pedagogical methods and best teaching practices in the field of data science.
Daniel Chen, Lecturer, MDS Vancouver
"The MDS faculty puts a tremendous amount of effort on the education and pedagogy of learning real-world data science skills. The courses are constantly adapting to new tools and gives the opportunity to practice the skills used in the workplace. During the capstone project, each learner consolidates all the skills into a specific domain in a collaborative team environment."
Daniel received their Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience from Macaulay Honors College at CUNY Hunter College and their Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Their PhD work was on data science education in the biomedical sciences from Virginia Tech where they looked at the process of creating and assessing the effectiveness of domain-specific data science materials with learner personas. They have also been involved with The Carpentries since 2014 where has has been an instructor, instructor trainer, and community maintainer lead. Daniel is a Data Science Educator at RStudio, PBC and joined the MDS faculty in March of 2022.
"One of the most unique aspects of this program is that it is designed for students whose main expertise is not in CS and Stats, but rather in other fields like life sciences, healthcare, business, and journalism; after graduation our students will be ready to effectively work as data scientist in those domains."
Joining the University of British Columbia’s Computer Science Faculty in 2004, Giuseppe Carenini has been teaching artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing, for over 15 years. In his research, Giuseppe has focused on text summarization, information visualization, and decision support, publishing over 120 peer-reviewed publications and receiving two best-paper awards – one from the UMAP 2014 conference (premier user modeling conference ) and the other from the ACM-TiiS-14 journal (top journal on Intelligent Interfaces). Giuseppe's research has been applied by companies like Microsoft, IBM, Google, Huawei and Yahoo to develop summarization techniques for product reviews and for conversational data (e.g., emails and blog), as well as basic techniques for discourse parsing and topic modelling. Giuseppe has also collaborated with local companies that aim to make data more useful in supporting complex decisions (Compass) and for public engagement (Metroquest). Currently, he is serving as the ConVISation Labs Chief Scientific Officer, with the goal of transferring his research on text analytics to the healthcare domain, in collaboration with the WelTel company
Varada Kolhatkar, Co-Director and Assistant Professor of Teaching, MDS Vancouver
"With a large amount of data available in different disciplines and powerful technology at our fingertips, it is tempting to throw data and technology at problems without deeper understanding of them. This way we easily end up with misleading interpretations of the data. This program teaches you how to interpret your data responsibly and answer data-related questions in a principled way, without ignoring the limitations of the technology or the data."
Varada Kolhatkar was born and raised in Pune, India, where she completed her undergraduate degree in Computer Science. After working in industry for two years in India, she pursued her Master’s degree from the University of Minnesota Duluth and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Toronto, both in Computer Science, specializing in Computational Linguistics. Before moving to UBC, Varada spent two years at Simon Fraser University as a post-doctoral fellow, where she developed datasets and computational tools that will help keep online communities engaged in constructive discussions. Varada has diverse experience of working in industry as well as in academia with different universities, countries, and cultures. She joined MDS in October 2018 as a teaching and research postdoctoral fellow. For Varada, learning and sharing knowledge are deeply satisfying practices, expressions of who we are and what we can achieve as human beings and her goal as a teacher is to instill this satisfaction in learning and sharing knowledge by encouraging learners to challenge, to discover, to try out new things, and to think about something in a way they had never thought before.
Tiffany Timbers, Co-Director and Associate Professor of Teaching, MDS Vancouver
"We teach cutting-edge tools and techniques that are used by data scientists out in the wild."
Tiffany Timbers received her Bachelor of Science in Biology from Carleton University in 2001, following which she completed a doctorate in neuroscience at the University of British Columbia in 2012, which focused on the genetic basis of learning and memory. After obtaining her doctorate, Tiffany carried out data-intensive postdoctoral research in behavioural and neural genomics at Simon Fraser University (published in PLoS Genetics). During this time, she also gained valuable experience teaching computational skills to students and scientists through her work with Data and Software Carpentry, the SFU scientific programming study group, and teaching a course in computation in Physical Sciences at Quest University. Tiffany began her teaching role in the MDS program at UBC in the summer of 2016.
Prajeet Bajpai, Postdoctoral Research and Teaching Fellow, MDS Vancouver
“We are collecting more data than ever before. Tools from data science and machine learning are also growing more accessible, making it easier to mine this data for our benefit, but also making it easier to draw false conlcusions and make costly mistakes based on bad science. UBC’s MDS Program is designed to give students a solid foundation in the fundamentals of data science, enabling them to generate reliable and reproducible insights from data and to understand the ethical implications of their work.”
Prajeet received his Master's and PhD in Mathematics at the University of British Columbia and his Bachelor's degree at Dartmouth College. As a PhD student, he had the opportunity to work as a TA for MDS, and joined the program full-time as a Postdoctoral Teaching and Learning Fellow in 2024.
Katie Burak, Assistant Professor of Teaching, MDS Vancouver
“The MDS program provides students the tools they need to tackle real-world problems in a variety of industries. Focusing on both theoretical and applied aspects of data science, the faculty at MDS strive to prepare students to be successful outside of the classroom.”
Katie completed her PhD in Statistics at the University of Alberta where her academic work focused on increasing the computational efficiency of nonparametric approaches such as bootstrapping using concentration of measure. Prior to that, she completed her undergraduate and master’s degrees in Mathematics and Statistics, respectively. Katie has a passion for statistical outreach and education and has organized a variety of outreach events in her community. Additionally, she is interested in investigating modern pedagogical methods and best teaching practices in the field of data science.
Daniel Chen, Lecturer, MDS Vancouver
"The MDS faculty puts a tremendous amount of effort on the education and pedagogy of learning real-world data science skills. The courses are constantly adapting to new tools and gives the opportunity to practice the skills used in the workplace. During the capstone project, each learner consolidates all the skills into a specific domain in a collaborative team environment."
Daniel received their Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience from Macaulay Honors College at CUNY Hunter College and their Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Their PhD work was on data science education in the biomedical sciences from Virginia Tech where they looked at the process of creating and assessing the effectiveness of domain-specific data science materials with learner personas. They have also been involved with The Carpentries since 2014 where has has been an instructor, instructor trainer, and community maintainer lead. Daniel is a Data Science Educator at RStudio, PBC and joined the MDS faculty in March of 2022.
"MDS program is designed for students to be successful in the industry. You will be armed with techniques to combat enormous data flow."
Gittu started his academic journey back in 2009. Following his undergrad and master's in Computer Science, he started working in the biotechnology industry as an Engineer. During his industry career, he designed enterprise solutions and computational frameworks for large-scale genome and phenome data. Later his interest in the intersection of computer science and genomics lead him to do a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from the University of Dundee, UK. During his PhD, he developed novel approaches to accelerate the computational time for genomic algorithms. He joined MDS program as a postdoctoral fellow in 2021.
Vincent Liu, Postdoctoral Research and Teaching Fellow, MDS Vancouver
“There have been exciting advances in artificial intelligence driven by the growth in the size and complexity of data. The data science program equips student with the fundamental knowledge and cutting-edge techniques to analyze and leverage large amounts of data for real-world applications.”
Vincent joined UBC in March 2024 as a postdoctoral teaching and research fellow. He completed his PhD and MSc in Computing Science at the University of Alberta where his research focused on data-driven reinforcement learning. Prior to that, he graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration from National Taiwan University. He is passionate about the use of foundation models for education and personalization.
Payman Nickchi, Postdoctoral Research and Teaching Fellow, MDS Vancouver
"The UBC MDS program is designed to teach you techniques in the field of data science. It offers a balanced approach between theory and application, equipping you with the tools needed to apply your knowledge to real-world problems."
Payman began his role as a Postdoctoral Research and Teaching Fellow at UBC in September 2024. Earlier that year, in February, he completed his PhD in Statistics at Simon Fraser University, where his research focused on biostatistics and goodness-of-fit tests using empirical distribution functions. Before that, he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematical statistics and a master's degree in statistics from the University of Tehran. His passion for statistics, teaching, and data science brought him to this role. Outside of work, Payman enjoys swimming and capturing the night sky through astrophotography.
Joel Östblom, Assistant Professor of Teaching, MDS Vancouver
"In addition to the core statistics and machine learning courses, MDS emphasizes the importance of data ethics, reproducibility, and open collaboration, which are crucial skills for a successful, sustainable data science career. Together with the diversity of educational backgrounds among students and instructors, this makes MDS an exciting place to both learn and teach!"
During his PhD, Joel developed a passion for data science and reproducibility through the development of quantitative image analysis pipelines for studying stem cell and developmental biology. He has since co-created or lead the development of several courses and workshops at the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia. Joel cares deeply about spreading data literacy and excitement over programmatic data analysis, which is reflected in his contributions to open source projects and data science learning resources. Learn more about Joel.
Okanagan
Giuseppe Carenini, Director, MDS Programs
"One of the most unique aspects of this program is that it is designed for students whose main expertise is not in CS and Stats, but rather in other fields like life sciences, healthcare, business, and journalism; after graduation our students will be ready to effectively work as data scientist in those domains."
Joining the University of British Columbia’s Computer Science Faculty in 2004, Giuseppe Carenini has been teaching artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing, for over 15 years. In his research, Giuseppe has focused on text summarization, information visualization, and decision support, publishing over 120 peer-reviewed publications and receiving two best-paper awards – one from the UMAP 2014 conference (premier user modeling conference ) and the other from the ACM-TiiS-14 journal (top journal on Intelligent Interfaces). Giuseppe's research has been applied by companies like Microsoft, IBM, Google, Huawei and Yahoo to develop summarization techniques for product reviews and for conversational data (e.g., emails and blog), as well as basic techniques for discourse parsing and topic modelling. Giuseppe has also collaborated with local companies that aim to make data more useful in supporting complex decisions (Compass) and for public engagement (Metroquest). Currently, he is serving as the ConVISation Labs Chief Scientific Officer, with the goal of transferring his research on text analytics to the healthcare domain, in collaboration with the WelTel company
W. John Braun, Acting Co-Director and Professor, MDS Okanagan
"Over the years, I have found no truer statement than that of John Tukey which I paraphrase here: 'The best thing about being a data scientist is that you get to play in everyone's backyard.'"
W. John Braun got his Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Western Ontario in 1992. Since then, he has held positions at a number of universities, including Western for 14 years where he attained the rank of Full Professor and was Chair of the Statistics Graduate Program for 5 years. In 2014, he took the opportunity to become Head of Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics and Statistics at UBC's Okanagan campus.
He was Deputy Director of the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute and is now Director of the UBCO site for the Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery. Braun's research in statistics is motivated by scientific problems, coming from psychology, biology, medicine, engineering and physics. His methodological contributions are concerned with computational issues around uncertainty quantification and smoothing techniques. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and two books in the area of computational statistics.
Khalad Hasan, Co-Director and Assistant Professor, MDS Okanagan
"The MDS program is an exciting journey for the students as it provides them the opportunity to build a strong understanding of data science subject matters and use this knowledge out in the wild."
Khalad Hasan is an assistant professor of computer science at UBC’s Okanagan campus. His research interest is in human-computer interaction, with a focus on developing and studying novel interactions with mobile and wearable devices. More specifically, he is interested in exploring users’ needs and making an impact in their lives, specifically when it concerns interacting with large data on small devices. Before joining UBC Okanagan, Khalad worked as an NSERC postdoctoral fellow at the University of Waterloo.
Ifeoma Adaji, Assistant Professor, MDS Okanagan
"The MDS program is designed to give students the relevant ‘hands on’ skills they need to succeed as data scientists. The strengths of the program include the diversity of the instructors and the evolving curriculum to meet current industry needs and standards."
Ifeoma Adaji is an assistant professor of computer science at UBC's Okanagan campus. She completed her Master's degree from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, UK and her Ph.D. from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. She briefly worked in industry as a data scientist after her Ph.D. in lieu of a postdoc. Her research interests include the development of tailored persuasive technologies for social good and the use of user generated data online to understand and predict the behaviour of online users. She is also interested in Fairness, Accountability, Transparency & Ethics in AI (FATE).
Shan Du, Assistant Professor, MDS Okanagan
"The MDS program equips students with comprehensive and intensive data science knowledge essential for entering data-related industries or academia after graduation. I am proud to be part of it.”
Shan Du is an assistant professor of Computer Science at UBC’s Okanagan Campus. She received the PhD degree from UBC Vancouver and the MSc degree from University of Calgary. Before joining UBC, she worked as an assistant professor with Lakehead University, Canada and as a Research Scientist/Software Engineer with IntelliView Technologies Inc., Canada. Shan is leading the Laboratory for Computational Vision and Intelligence at UBCO to investigate innovative technologies to address the most challenging issues in the field of image/video processing, computer vision/graphics, machine/deep learning, biometrics, and video surveillance systems. She has more than 15 years research and industrial development experience. Shan was recipient of many awards and grants, including NSERC-IRDF, NSERC-CGS D, AITF Industry r&D Associates Grant, ICASSP Best Paper Award, NSERC DG, CFI JELF, NFRF Exploration, etc. She is a senior member of IEEE, IEEE Signal Processing Society and IEEE Circuits and Systems Society. She is serving as an Associate Editor of IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology and IEEE Canadian Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Area Chair of ICIP 2023, and served as Area/Session Chair of ICIP 2022, 2021, and 2019.
Fatemeh Hendijani Fard, Assistant Professor, MDS Okanagan
"I am interested in the applications of data science and machine learning for software engineering. Specifically I am working on the detection and prediction of defect/anomalous behaviour in software. This also requires using big data analysis in practice."
Hendijani Fard obtained her PhD from the University of Calgary and her Master of Science from Amirkabir University. Fard's research interest includes mining Github repositories, natural language processing for software analytics, analyzing software defect databases, social media analysis in software analytics and analytics mobile applications. Currently, Hendijani Fard and her team are analyzing software energy bugs in mobile applications from two perspectives: Software and Users. They analyze massive sets of data from GitHub for a personalized recommender system for GitHub users.
Patricia Lasserre, Associate Professor, MDS Okanagan
"I love that the MDS program makes the students reflect on ethical issues associated with collecting and analyzing data. It is critical as data scientist that we recognize that we all have a role to play in protecting the ethics, privacy and security of the data we work with."
Dr. P. Lasserre has completed her PhD on Vision for Autonomous Robots in Toulouse (France) in 1996. Since her appointment as Associate Professor at UBC Okanagan in July 2005, she has received the Teaching Excellence and Innovation award (2010), served on several administrative positions as associate dean, associate provost, and provost pro-term (2011-2019) where she participated in UBC wide Data Governance discussions. Her research interests include machine learning techniques in various applications, particularly deep learning in computer vision and OCR.
Yves Lucet, Professor, MDS Okanagan
“Students in the MDS program learn not only the power but most importantly the common missteps one can make in data science. It is about critical thinking in a very complex environment that leverages powerful technologies: modeling, optimization, and data-based algorithms.”
Dr. Yves Lucet is a professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia. His research interests lie in optimization, computer-aided convex analysis, and efficient modeling that take advantage of problem structures. He is a co-recipient of the 2019 EURO Excellence in Practice Award for his work on using optimization to design safe roads at minimal cost. His latest interests are in the interactions between optimization and machine learning.
Gema Rodríguez-Pérez, Assistant Professor, MDS Okanagan
"Working with data allows MDS students to play with knowledge. The MDS program is an amazing opportunity for them to expand their skillset and knowledge and make an impact in today’s world. I’m glad to be part of this program."
My research work focuses on empirical software studies that mine the development historical data of software systems. I use a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques to understand the problem and determine approaches that can help to solve it. Specifically, I research the technical and non-technical aspects in software engineering with the aim of improving software development processes and practices, and increasing diversity in online communities.
John Thompson, Assistant Professor, MDS Okanagan
"The MDS program brings together bright students from various disciplines and trains them in statistics and machine learning skills needed to be successful data scientists. I'm excited to participate in a program dedicated to developing the quantitative skills needed for handling modern, complex data problems."
John R.J. Thompson is an assistant professor of statistics at UBC's Okanagan campus whose areas of expertise are nonparametric statistics and machine learning. John's statistical research interests lie in nonparametric statistics, clustering, metric learning, climate risk evaluation through direct and indirect environmental impacts, modelling the behaviours of Canadian investors under the guidance of financial advisors, and designing effective financial measures and Robo-tools that aid financial advisors in supporting their clients' investment portfolios. John is a member of Canada's Financial Wellness Lab, which aims to develop data-driven tools that Canadians can use to improve their financial resilience, reduce financial stress, and support better financial decision-making.
Computational Linguistics
Giuseppe Carenini, Director, MDS Programs
"One of the most unique aspects of this program is that it is designed for students whose main expertise is not in CS and Stats, but rather in other fields like life sciences, healthcare, business, and journalism; after graduation our students will be ready to effectively work as data scientist in those domains."
Joining the University of British Columbia’s Computer Science Faculty in 2004, Giuseppe Carenini has been teaching artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing, for over 15 years. In his research, Giuseppe has focused on text summarization, information visualization, and decision support, publishing over 120 peer-reviewed publications and receiving two best-paper awards – one from the UMAP 2014 conference (premier user modeling conference ) and the other from the ACM-TiiS-14 journal (top journal on Intelligent Interfaces). Giuseppe's research has been applied by companies like Microsoft, IBM, Google, Huawei and Yahoo to develop summarization techniques for product reviews and for conversational data (e.g., emails and blog), as well as basic techniques for discourse parsing and topic modelling. Giuseppe has also collaborated with local companies that aim to make data more useful in supporting complex decisions (Compass) and for public engagement (Metroquest). Currently, he is serving as the ConVISation Labs Chief Scientific Officer, with the goal of transferring his research on text analytics to the healthcare domain, in collaboration with the WelTel company
Garrett Nicolai, Director and Assistant Professor of Teaching, MDS Computational Linguistics
"It's a really exciting time to be working in NLP. The field has been revolutionized multiple times in the past decade, and we are seeing great progress solving problems that were unfathomable in the past. I'm thrilled to be working with the MDS-CL as we prepare students to process, analyse, and model data that is increasing at an unprecedented rate."
Garrett Nicolai joined the MDS Computational Linguistics program in 2020 as a post-doctoral researcher and Capstone mentor, before becoming an Assistant Professor of Teaching. Garrett completed his MSc. in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Regina before obtaining a PhD in NLP at the University of Alberta, completing a BA in Linguistics along the way. Before coming to Vancouver, Garrett was a post-doctoral researcher at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Language and Speech Processing, working on low-resource computational morphology. His research interests lie in improving the quality of computational tools for under-resourced languages, including the construction of computational corpora for such purposes.
Scott Mackie, Assistant Professor, MDS Computational Linguistics
"Language is a critical component of artificial intelligence. Solving the field's more challenging problems will require a combination of data science, machine learning, and linguistics. The traditional split between arts and sciences means that few people end up with this blend of skills. The MDS-CL program fills that gap, providing a cross-disciplinary education that helps graduates stand out in the job market."
Scott Mackie received his Ph.D in Linguistics from the University of British Columbia in 2017. He is interested in creating computational research tools, and was a founding member of the UBC Phonology Tools group, writing software for analyzing both spoken and signed languages. He spent 2018-2024 at Amazon, developing natural language understanding models for the Alexa voice assistant. He was also co-author on Amazon's M.A.S.S.I.V.E dataset, a parallel corpus of over 1M sentences spanning 51 languages. He returned to UBC in 2024 as an Assistant Professor in the MDS Computational Linguistics program. His current research focusses on using Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) techniques to improve the response quality of generative language models.
Jungyeul Park, Lecturer, MDS Computational Linguistics
"UBC’s MDS Computational Linguistics is the study of data science and linguistics that empower students to be future ready with tools in computational linguistics. I’m excited to work with our students and explore the new era of natural language processing."
Jungyeul Park received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the Université Paris Diderot (Paris VII) in 2006. His interest in natural language processing motivated him to pursue Linguistics after initially studying Computer Science. His current research interests include machine learning approaches for morphology and syntax of natural language. He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) and an affiliate assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics at University of Washington (Seattle, USA). Before that he was a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics at the State University of New York at Buffalo during 2018-2019, a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona during 2016-2017, a research scientist at CEA (Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives) during 2015-2016, and a lecturer (attaché temporaire d'enseignement et de recherche) in the Department of Computer Sciences at IUT de Lannion (Université de Rennes 1) during the academic year 2013-2014.
Jian Zhu, Assistant Professor, MDS Computational Linguistics
"I am thrilled to be teaching the MDS-CL program at a time when Natural Language Processing (NLP) is advancing at a rapid pace. With breakthroughs in deep learning, we are witnessing a revolution in the way machines understand and process human language. As an instructor, I am excited to share my knowledge and expertise with the students, and to guide them as they explore the latest NLP techniques and technologies. It is an exciting time to be at the forefront of this field, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for NLP and its applications."
Jian Zhu received his Ph.D. degree in Linguistics and Scientific Computing from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2022. After his Ph.D., Jian had conducted NLP research both in the industry and in the academia. Before joining UBC, Jian was a post-doctoral research fellow in the School of Information at University of Michigan, working on the large-scale computational sociolinguistics. His current research interests lie in teaching machines to recognize spoken languages across the world and unstanding people's linguistic behavior in the online communities through large-scale computational methods.
Kenna McEwan, Program Manager, MDS Computational Linguistics
“I’m inspired by the work ethic and drive of the MDS students and am excited to support students in creating a healthy learning environment as they delve into the study of data science”
Kenna McEwan is born and raised in British Columbia and received her Bachelors in Linguistics at the University of British Columbia. Prior to taking on the Masters of Data Science - Computational Linguistics Program Manager role, she has worked at UBC in both undergraduate and research-based graduate programs, where she gained skills in navigating post-secondary administration. Kenna is committed to supporting students in having a positive experience during their time in the program, from application to graduation.
Sonya Thomlinson, Career Advisor, MDS Okanagan and Computational Linguistics
“Data Science is a vast and exciting field with the potential to create enormous impact across all sectors and industries. I’m thrilled to be part of one of the highest rated Data Science Professional Programs in Canada."
Sonya Thomlinson has been an entrepreneur for over 20 years as a founder of multiple businesses as well as a US non-profit. Sonya has been building relationships and working with individuals to help them attain their career goals in the MDS program at UBC Okanagan and CL in Vancouver. Since joining UBC in 2022, Sonya has enjoyed the energy and excitement on campus and is passionate about helping students prepare for their future careers, discover their own areas of passion, and ensure that they have the tools to succeed to their fullest potential.
Vanessa Ho, Marketing Coordinator, MDS Program
"I am always amazed and blown away with all the students who pass through the MDS program. They all come from diverse backgrounds who learn from each other as they go through this intensive 10-month program on their path to a new career in data science."
Vanessa Ho obtained her Bachelor's of Journalism degree from the University of Regina and worked for four years as a technology journalist in Toronto. Vanessa moved back to Vancouver in 2008 and transitioned into a career as a digital content creator for a variety of technology companies in the Vancouver area. She started at the MDS program in 2018 as the marketing coordinator chronicling the MDS student journey. Outside of MDS, Vanessa is a pop culture enthusiast and enjoys biking and baking.
Muhammad Abdul-Mageed, Assistant Professor, MDS Computational Linguistics (On Leave)
"Deep learning is revolutionary. Some of the most exciting progress in deep learning is happening with language. It is in your car, your browser, and your pocket. Deep learning of language is in its infancy, with fascinating progress ahead.”
Muhammad Abdul-Mageed is an Assistant Professor of Computational Linguistics, Information Science, and Computer Science and Director of the Natural Language Processing Lab at the UBC. He is a core member of UBC Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems and Centre for Artificial Intelligence Decision-making and Action. His research focuses on developing novel deep learning methods for natural language socio-pragmatics, with a goal to build `social’ machines to enhance human health and well-being.
