Students and Alumni

UBC MDS attracts bright minds from a wide range of backgrounds. Find out more about our students and alumni read about what they were doing prior to joining the program, their experience during the program, and their journey ahead.

Vancouver

Alumni

Employment Status 6 and 12 Months After Graduation

Employment Positions

Data Science Consultant/Contractor Software Engineer
Software Developer/Data Engineer Research and Innovation Intern
Data Scientist Machine Learning Engineer
Data Management Engineer Consultant
Data Manager Technical Business Analyst
Data Engineer Analyst
Data Analyst Faculty, Operations Management
Research Analyst Application Architect
Faculty/Data Analyst in Residence Artificial Intelligence Industry Analyst Intern
Computational Biologist Business Intelligence Engineer
Senior Data Analyst Data Intelligence Platform Analyst
Business Insights Analyst Quantitative Analyst
Manager Finance and Strategy Fraud Modeler
Machine Learning Developer Senior Data Scientist
Director of Data and Technology Specialist of the Department of Analysis and Strategy
Predictive Analyst Machine Learning Developer
Simulation Manager Director, Compensation Data and Research
Associate Director of Marketing Analytics Manager, Visualization and Support
Investigative Trading Analyst Senior Policy Analyst

Job Location

Alumni Incomes

Top Industries Worked In

* Based on MDS Vancouver alumni survey responses 6 months and 1 year after graduation since the class of 2017.

Students

Previous Degree

Where Students Come From

Previous Degree Level

Gender Identification

Years Since Last Degree

Class Size

* Based on all MDS Vancouver cohorts since the class of 2017.

Okanagan

Alumni

Employment Status 6 and 12 Months After Graduation

Employment Positions

Senior Analytics Specialist Data Analyst, Enterprise Business Intelligence Team
Data Science Research Assistant Data Developer
Public Health Epidemiologist Data Analyst
Research Analyst Data visualization analyst
Senior Data Scientist Director Industry AI
Quality Assurance Engineer Machine Learning engineer
Director, Research and Data Science Data Scientist & Engineer
Data Scientist  

Job Location

Alumni Incomes

Top Industries Worked In

* Based on MDS Okanagan alumni survey responses 6 months and 1 year after graduation since the class of 2019.

Students

Previous degree

Geography

Previous Degree Level

Years Since Last Degree

Gender Identification

Class Size

* Based on all MDS Okanagan cohorts since the class of 2019.

Computational Linguistics

Alumni

Employment Status 6 Months After Graduation

Employment Positions

Data Analyst Developer
Agile Developer Data Scientist
Machine Learning Engineer - Speech Recognition Applied Data Scientist III
Software Developer Data Science Intern
Business intelligence developer NLP/Deep Learning Engineer
Language Engineer Machine Learning Engineer
NLU Language Consultant Data Engineer
NLP Machine Learning Engineer AI Developer
Data Extraction Developer Marketing Data Scientist
NLP Data Scientist Software Engineer - NLP/NLU
Computational Linguist Senior Data Analyst
Senior AI Engineer Prompt Engineer

Job Location

Alumni Incomes

Top Industries Worked In

* Based on MDS Computational Linguistics alumni survey responses 6 months after graduation since the class of 2020.

Students

Previous Degree

Geography

Previous degree

Years Since Last Degree

Gender Identification

Class Size

* Based on all MDS Computational Linguistics cohorts since the class of 2020.

Student and Alumni Profiles

All

Class of 2022

Saffrin Granby, MDS Computational Linguistics

Saffrin Granby, Decision Support Advisor at Vancouver Coastal Health

"I felt that this program really combined my love for linguistics and my previous experience in computer science. I like using my technical skills and my ideal career involves me working with language data so I felt like the MDS Computational Linguistics program was a good match."

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Science in Cognitive Systems from the University of British Columbia
Program: MDS Computational Linguistics, Class of 2022

I think data science is being used to solve a lot of really cool problems. Natural language data that can be used for really impactful applications such as improving health care or flighting climate change. It feels like a really important field right now. I knew I wanted to pursue a career in data science but a lot of the positions required or strongly preferred a Master’s level education. I liked that the program was only 10-months long and that I would be able to focus specially on state-of-the art NLP techniques.

About Saffrin Granby

Saffrin completed her Bachelor of Science in Cognitive Systems at UBC where she specialized in Computer Science. During her undergraduate degree, Saffrin worked at the CANARY lab at UBC where she worked on using linguistic features to detect the presence of Alzheimer’s disease. When not studying, Saffrin enjoys long bike rides and hanging out with friends by going on walks or trying restaurants together. Read Saffrin’s story.
 

Gavin Grochowski Master of Data Science Okanagan

Gavin Grochowski, MDS Okanagan, Class of 2022

"The top benefit of the program has been my outstanding peers – I have made lifelong friends that I respect and admire. The network of connections this program offers to previous alumni brings with it a wealth of opportunities to apply for relevant jobs."

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Music in Jazz Saxophone from Capilano University
Program: MDS Okanagan, Class of 2022

Before the MDS Okanagan program, I was working contract-to-contract as a cruise ship musician on international trips. Then, when the pandemic canceled my ongoing contracts, I got more and more curious about programming and data science fundamentals in an attempt to re-skill into a more sustainable and fulfilling career. The MDS Okanagan program is uniquely designed for students with technical abilities and interests, but not necessarily requiring a technical undergraduate degree – students exactly like me. 

About Gavin Grochowski

Originally from Vancouver, Gavin obtained his Bachelor of Music in Jazz Saxophone from Capilano University.  When his working situation changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gavin pivoted to re-skill into a more sustainable and fulfilling career. With a love for coding and problem solving, Gavin began looking for data science programs. UBCO’s reputation for quality of education, along with MDS Okanagan program is uniquely designed for students with technical abilities and interests, made it the right fit for Gavin. Having now completed the program, Gavin is excited to apply the technical skills learned over the course of the program to pursue employment as a Data Scientist or a Data Analyst in order to support key stakeholders in making key business decisions. Read Gavin’s story.
 

Sara Hall Master of Data Science Okanagan

Sara Hall, Data Scientist at riskthinking AI

"One of the best things about MDS is that it’s designed for people from pretty much any background, so you don’t need an undergraduate degree in computer science as you do for a lot of other programs."

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Science, Honours in Neuroscience from the University of Calgary
Program: MDS Okanagan, Class of 2022

During my undergrad, I found that the coursework I preferred was more analytical in nature. After taking a few computer science courses, I realized I wanted to learn how to apply computational methods to real-world problems. The structure of the program, designed for people from almost any educational background, along with the opportunity to learn in a small cohort, really tipped the scales in MDS-O’s favour. Now that I have come through the program, I have far more technical data science experience and the skills to continue learning on my own.

About Sara Hall

Sara obtained Bachelor of Science in in Neuroscience from the University of Calgary, before moving directly into the MDS Okanagan program. It was during her time completing her undergraduate degree where Sara fostered a desire to learn how to apply computational methods to real-world problems.  Situated in beautiful city of Kelowna, the MDS-O program, with its small cohort size and real-world experience through its capstone projects, caught Sara’s attention. Sara will look to apply the expertise taught in the MDS program on the Okanagan campus to pursue a career related to climate risk management. Read Sara's story.
 

Oksana Kurylo Computational Linguistics

Oksana Kurylo, MDS Computational Linguistics, Class of 2022

"I chose MDS Computational Linguistics as it offered a unique combination of data science and NLP courses. Also, a significant role in selecting MDS Computational Linguistics was the capstone project, where you can work on a real business problem with a company."

Previous Degree: Masters of Applied Linguistics from Lviv Polytechnic National University
Program: MDS Computational Linguistics, Class of 2022

As I was not from a Computer Science background, I wanted to get missing technical fundamentals and broaden my skill set to the data science toolkit. Also, it was essential to learn more about the state-of-the-art techniques in Natural Language Processing, namely Deep Learning for NLP.

About Oksana Kurylo

Before joining the MDS Computational Linguistics program, Oksana worked as a Computational Linguist and Natural Language Processing Researcher at several start-ups in her native Ukraine. It was while doing her first master's degree in Applied Linguistics from the Lviv Polytechnic National University, Oksana took a course on Computational Linguistics by Andriy Romanyuk, which opened a new world of Natural Language Processing for her. Outside of MDS Computational Linguistics, Oksana enjoys travelling. Read Oksana’s story.
 

Gautham - Master of Data Science Vancouver

Gautham Pughazhendhi, Software Engineer II – AI Platform at Electronic Arts

"I wanted to find a curriculum that will enable me to add data science skillsets to my software engineering toolbox. The UBC MDS program perfectly matched all these requirements making me want to be a part of this program."

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering from Anna University
Program: MDS Vancouver, Class of 2022

My bachelor’s capstone project was based on machine learning in which my team and I built a machine learning model to predict whether an earthquake can cause a tsunami given the earthquake characteristics. During my professional experience, I worked on building conversational AI agents for major multinational retail and financial corporations. All these contributions made me realize my interest in this field, and I wanted to pursue a professional master’s degree to gain in-depth academic knowledge.

About Gautham Pughazhendhi

After graduating with a Bachelor of Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering from Anna University, Gautham worked as a software engineer as part of a machine learning team at Sirius Computer Solutions, a CDW company. Because of the intense nature of the MDS program, Gautham credits the program for teaching him to manage my priorities efficiently and be productive. When not in class, avid swimmer, Gautham frequented the UBC Aquatic Center. Read Gautham’s story.
 

Nico Van den Hooff Master of Data Science Vancouver

Nico Van den Hooff, Machine Learning Engineer at Patriot One Technologies

"The UBC MDS program offered a great balance of the skills needed to succeed in machine learning and data science.  In addition, the 10-month duration of the program was very attractive as it was really the fastest way for me to pivot with additional education."
 

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Technology in Accounting from British Columbia Institute of Technology
Prior Experience: Senior Accountant / Consultant, KPMG
Program: MDS Vancouver, Class of 2022

At KPMG, I worked on a few projects where we utilized data analytics and data visualization which introduced me to the world of data science. I saw the value that data science could provide to companies, and after some time found my true passion which is machine learning. mainly worked with large banking, credit union, wealth management, manufacturing, and real estate clients.

About Nico Van den Hoff

Vancouver native Nico obtained his Bachelor of Technology in Accounting from British Columbia Institute of Technology and was working in finance at KPMG LLP prior to joining the MDS Vancouver program mainly working with large banking, credit union, wealth management, manufacturing, and real estate clients. It was while working at KPMG that Nico realized his passion for machine learning. In Nico’s spare time, he enjoys long distance running (marathons), playing golf, and collecting whisky and wine. Read Nico’s story.
 

Class of 2021

Ela Bandari Headshot

Ela Bandari, MDS Vancouver, Class of 2021

“I decided on MDS because of its 10-month duration, the breadth of topics covered and its focus on community.”

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Science, Honours in Behavioural Neuroscience (Minor in Biology), University of British Columbia
Program: MDS Vancouver, Class of 2021

During my undergraduate degree, I was involved with multiple research projects. In these projects, my favourite stages of the research cycle were experimental design and data analysis. MDS was the perfect opportunity to further my understanding in these topics.

About Ela Bandari

Prior to MDS, Bandari completed my B.Sc. in Behavioural Neuroscience with a minor in Biology at UBC. After completing the MDS program, Bandari will be starting medical school at the University of Western Ontario in the fall. Bandari believes MDS has given her a broad knowledge base and technical skillset that will serve her in her future career and put her in a unique position at the intersection of data science and medicine. Outside of MDS, Bandari loves spending time outdoors like doing multi-day backpacking trips. Read Ela’s Story.

Selma Duric

Selma Durić, Consultant, Digital Internal Audit at Deloitte

“One of the greatest strengths of the MDS program is their openness to students from different academic backgrounds.”

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting and Finance, Simon Fraser University
Program: MDS Vancouver, Class of 2021

As a CPA, I believe that I am in a unique role where I have a good understanding of the business needs but also have the strong analytical skills needed for programming and statistics. I consider data science as a tool which can be applied to many different fields and see it as being the path forward to significantly improve the work that accountants do and the analytics and reporting that business operations rely on. 

About Selma Durić

Prior to entering the MDS Vancouver program, Selma earned her Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting and Finance from Simon Fraser University. Selma worked as a senior accountant where much of her accounting work relied on data. It was there Selma realized the potential value she could bring by finding better approaches to working with data. As a long-time Vancouverite, Selma loves spending her time outdoors. When the sun is out, Selma likes to walk/cycle around and explore the different neighbourhoods of Vancouver. Read Selma’s story.

Celine Liu Computational Linguistics

Celine Liu, Applied Scientist at Amazon

“The MDS-CL program offers a strong focus on applied NLP, a perfect match for what I was looking for.”

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Computer Science, University of British Columbia
Program: MDS Computational Linguistics, Class of 2021

While working with intelligent systems in the industry and conducting research in the public health domain with text mining techniques, I witnessed the tremendous impact and potential that modern AI could have over solving global societal and business challenges, coming to the realization that NLP models are the foundation towards building a strong AI.

About Celine Liu

Celine obtained her Bachelor’s of Computer Science degree from the University of British Columbia. It was during an undergrad internship at Microsoft and Hootsuite that exposed Celine to the world of NLP and machine learning techniques. During the internship, Liu had the opportunity to build Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based machine learning (ML) systems and participated in a text mining research project with a group of public health researchers from UBC and BC Center for Disease Control to understand the landscape of digital public health. With the MDS-CL program now complete, Liu believed it offered here a holistic view of the classic ML models and a variety of language models as well as a great number of skillsets to her toolbox working with not only in NLP but machine learning in general. Read Celine's story.
 

Rafael Pilliard Hellwig

Rafael Pillard Hellwig, Data Scientist at Action Against Hunger

"Coming from a non-STEM background, one of the things that drew me to the MDS is that it has a broad and diverse mission statement for recruitment. This program is known for being diverse, and I continually gain insights from the experiences that my peers bring to the table."

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Arts, Honours in Law and Political Science, Carleton University
Prior Experience: Monitoring & Evaluation Lead, USAID Jordan Local Enterprise Support Project
Program: MDS Vancouver, Class of 2021

An increasing number of tools now exist that fully automate the machine learning pipeline, such that anyone can fit a powerful model with little to no code. In some ways, that is wonderful because it democratizes the field. But it also opens up the risk that people use AI without understanding their models. This is why for me, a critical function of the data scientists is to interpret and explain. It is about knowing how to frame a problem before crunching the numbers. For anyone worried about the future job market, these human roles are going to be replaced by machines for a long time. With its emphasis on communication, ethics, and extracting knowledge from data, the MDS will give you the technical and critical thinking skills to become a thinking data scientist who can tackle a broad range of problems.

About Rafael Pilliard Hellwig

After completing his undergraduate studies in the social sciences, Rafael moved to the Middle East to work in organizational development, sustainability consulting, and economic development. In these roles, a common thread has been that Rafael helped companies and governments make complex data intelligible and accessible. His experience includes leading large-scale enterprise surveys, answering causal questions through quasi-experimental analysis, championing open-data initiatives and corporate transparency, and creating tools that automate the analytics pipeline. After moving back to his hometown of Vancouver in 2019, Rafael focused on helping foreign aid implementers communicate complex concepts through visualization. Rafael chose the MDS Vancouver program to deepen his technical acumen and build a network of like-minded professionals.

Class of 2019

Ayla Pearson

Ayla Pearson, Computational Biologist at Poisson Consulting Ltd.

“The MDS program was exactly what I wanted to be able to do with data, which is to turn data into meaningful actions and be able to create decisions from them.”

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Science, Chemistry – University of Victoria
Prior Experience: Resource Clerk, Province of British Columbia
Program: MDS Vancouver, Class of 2019

I've been looking for data science master's programs for months. Nothing really clicked and as soon as I read the MDS program description, it was exactly what I wanted to do and that is being able to use already collected data to answer decisions to create solutions and to try and get new information out of it which was everything that I was trying to do in my work already but didn't really have the skills to do it or the confidence.

About Ayla Pearson

Hailing from Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Ayla initially wanted to pursue a master’s in biology but couldn’t find the right program. Ayla realized that she preferred to do the data analysis side of biology versus going out in the field and collecting the data but she didn’t think that she could. A conversation with her mother made Ayla realize that she could separate those careers. Ayla enjoyed the fast-paced environment of the MDS program and the small classes allowed her to engage with other students and faculty on a one-to-one basis. Ayla will be returning to her role as a resource clerk with the Ministry of Forests Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development but hopes to transition into a data science role within the organization in the near-future. Ayla holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Chemistry from the University of Victoria. Read Ayla's story.

Birinder Singh

Birinder Singh, Data Scientist at Rocket Innovation Studio

“[MDS’] extensive and comprehensive curriculum was not being covered at any of the other programs within this short span of ten months.”

Previous Degree: Integrated MTech, Geophysical Technology, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
Program: MDS Vancouver, Class of 2019

I was already curious and reading articles about the developments in machine learning and doing Kaggle competitions and some online courses. If I was only doing online courses, I would have missed a lot. MDS taught me what skills were important and how to connect the dots while providing guidance that is missing from online courses.

About Birinder Singh

Originally from Amritsar, India, Birinder worked for Schlumberger for almost 5 years as a Petro Technical Engineer. It was falling oil prices that prompted Birinder to find a way to better utilize available data to create value for its clients. Birinder holds an Integrated MTech, Geophysical Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. Since completing the program, Birinder is now a data scientist for Integra Data and Analytics Solutions, a Calgary-based company that provides data science solutions to the oil and gas industry.
Read Birinder's story.

Heather Van Tassel

Heather Van Tassel, Data Scientist at Visier

“The years of knowledge and expertise that the MDS teachers have is priceless. Even if I did sit down and try to learn data science, I wouldn't know where to start or what to focus on.”

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Science, Integrated Science: Biochemistry and Neuroscience, University of British Columbia
Program: MDS Vancouver, Class of 2019

Even though at first I was skeptical about whether the MDS program would be worth the investment, and also extremely nervous about the intensity of the program, given my limited coding skills, I could not be happier with the knowledge, experience and job opportunities I have gained through the program, and would recommend it to anyone looking to challenge themselves and help shape their career towards utilizing these exciting, powerful and innovative data science tools. I have learned so much in such a short amount of time and am inspired to continue adding diversity to the field as a woman in data science.

About Heather Van Tassel

As Heather was completing her biochemistry and neuroscience degree at the University of British Columbia, she took a biostatistics course which became her doorway into data science. A MDS alumna and UBC professor encouraged her to apply to the MDS program. What appealed to Heather the most about the MDS program was how inclusive it was in accepting students from all backgrounds who don’t necessarily have a strong background in computer science. Heather feels that the MDS program gave her the hands-on skills and knowledge to actually be able to help businesses find value and insights from their data for real-world impacts.
Read Heather's story.

Class of 2018

Jordan Dubchak

Jordan Dubchak, Data Scientist at Teck Resources Ltd.

“Having the support of a very dedicated team of instructors along with the environment of your fellow students who have all such different backgrounds is my favorite thing of the program because you're learning so much not only from your instructors and your TA’S but also the people around you because they have different specialized skills.”

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Science - Biology, University of British Columbia
Program: MDS Vancouver, Class of 2018

I took my first computer science course in the last term of my undergraduate degree, which lead to a change in career path. The switch to data science began through self-learning, and my curiosity lead me to the MDS program. I was initially drawn to the program by the accelerated format and believed the structure of the fundamental data science materials would best set me up for success in my new field.  

About Jordan Dubchak

Between Jordan’s undergraduate and MDS degrees, Jordan worked as a preschool teacher. Since MDS graduation, Jordan has been working as a consultant for Slalom Consulting - Silicon Valley,  helping Fortune 100 companies solve their data problems. 

Ted Haley

Ted Haley, Senior Data Engineer at People Data Labs

"Coming from a Civil Engineering background, I was initially unsure if the MDS program would benefit me. My uncertainty was quickly put at ease seeing more and more industries leveraging the benefits of Data Science. There is tremendous opportunity to use the skills learned in the MDS program and apply them to solve hard problems in traditionally low-tech industries."

Previous Degree: Bachelors of Applied Science in Civil Engineering, University of British Columbia
Prior Experience: RJC Engineers
Program:  MDS Vancouver, Class of 2018

I came to the UBC MDS program because I knew that I wanted to learn as much about Data Science as I could and I wanted to broaden my skill set. The UBC MDS program accomplished this by supplying students with world-class educators and by providing engaging labs to apply this theoretical knowledge, in a hands-on environment. I learned a lot this way in the short 10-month program, but I also can attribute this to having helpful and knowledgeable peers, and thought-provoking work. This program attracts brilliant people from all over the globe, and I'm very pleased to have them as friends and potential future colleagues. 

About Ted Haley

Ted is a civil engineer with 6 years of experience in construction management and consulting industries. He has experience managing construction projects from minor renovations to multi-billion dollar design-build projects. He hopes to apply his skills from the MDS program in conjunction with his experience from the consulting industry to solve tough problems facing society and industry. Since graduating, Ted is now an applied software and materials engineer with the University of British Columbia where he has developed a data management platform for an automated robotics platform using Python.

Class of 2017

Rodrigo Coronado

Rodrigo Coronado, Director for Advanced Analytics at Avande

"MDS gave me a great insight into the data science value chain, and provided me with a deep understanding of algorithms, statistical models and development practices."

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Management Information Systems, Technologico de Monterrey
Prior Experience: Hewlett Packard, Microsoft
Program: MDS Vancouver, Class of 2017

With my background in business and global enterprises, combined with the data science experience I gained in MDS, I’m eager to pursue a strategic role translating the benefits of data science into business value. I’m passionate about how enterprises and society are leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning—from retailers using AI bots, warehouses powered on AI robots, utility companies forecasting energy demand, hospitals automating triage processes, and researchers predicting heart attacks. I get excited thinking about the possibilities of applying my skills to drive change in industry and in the world.

About Rodrigo Coronado

Prior to completing the UBC Master of Data Science program, Rodrigo earned a degree in management information systems. He has a wide range of experience leading delivery teams and international projects and has worked with Hewlett Packard and Microsoft for 18 years in a diverse set of positions in business development, project management, enterprise applications, and global enterprise architecture practices. Rodrigo currently works as the Director of Advanced Analytics for Avanade in Calgary, Alberta.

Kai He, Data Scientist at BGC Engineering

Kai He, Data Scientist at BGC Engineering

"My capstone project involved Natural Language Processing using topic modelling tools, where I learned about not only model and feature selection, but also collaboration, exploratory data analysis process, and much more."

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Science, University of British Columbia
Prior Experience: University of British Columbia, Bioinformatics Laboratory
Program: MDS Vancouver, Class of 2017

I realized early on in my undergraduate studies that I also have a strong interest in mathematics and computer science. I took many math and algorithm electives while studying Life Sciences, and decided that I'd like to learn more about how to process large amount of raw data, build practical statistical models, and derive insightful and actionable solutions. That's exactly what I learned in this intense, accelerated program. I was trained in data wrangling, machine learning as well as communicating my ideas and insights as a data scientist.

About Kai He

Kai has worked in multiple Bioinformatics labs as a data analyst/research assistant. He is currently a Data Scientist at BGC Engineering, where he is applying machine learning techniques to real industrial problems in the field of geoengineering. He believes that this is a new domain with a large amount of data in all forms, such as time series, unstructured text, images, and even 50-year-old paper maps with coffee stains on them. He is learning more everyday and is very excited to find new ways of utilizing all the historical data.

Nada Salem, MDS Class of 2017

Nada Salem, Data Scientist at Spotify

"My goal is to empower management to make better and more informed data driven decisions for the organization."

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Carnegie Mellon University
Prior Experience: EY
Program: MDS Vancouver, Class of 2017

My background as a management consultant as well as my MDS degree have made me aware of the value a data scientist can drive from large amounts of information already present inside an institution. This program has allowed me to amass a large amount of skills that extend from data wrangling and visualization to training machine learning models and algorithms.

About Nada Salem

Nada has 2 years of experience as a management consultant and has worked on solving business problems through structured and data-based analyses to improve client performance. Prior to being a consultant, Nada completed a degree in business administration with a focus on marketing analytics. With a passion in Behavioral Economics, Nada’s thesis analyzed and classified consumer risk-taking behavior using a wide range of features collected from various data sources. After graduating from the MDS program, Nada worked as a data scientist with Microsoft and is now currently working as a data science with Spotify in New York City.

Nasim Taba

Nasim Taba, Data Scientist at BC Stats

"I am excited to participate fully in the sweeping changes in data science, and the ideal next step is to use my MDS knowledge for social good. I am interested in exploring factors that contribute to youth homelessness; using hard data to shed light on social patterns may help alleviate problems of teenagers and their families."

Previous Degree: Master of Management Sciences, University of Waterloo
Prior Experience: Deloitte
Program: MDS Vancouver, Class of 2017

In the MDS program, I learned to extract and analyze data from both unstructured and structured forms and communicate the findings to enable organizations to make informed decisions based on data. We were well trained in Python, R, and SQL. Projects included working with both structured and non-structured data; data cleaning and imputation; applying cleaned data to various machine learning models to provide multivariate assessments, classification and prediction; visualizing data using Matplotlib, Shiny app and ggplot.

About Nasim Taba

Nasim Taba has more than 4 years of management consulting experience gained through her career at Deloitte IT Consulting. With experience in implementing small and large scale IT project implementations for Fortune 500 and 1000 companies, Nasim has experience working throughout the entire project lifecycle. From managing JAD sessions with stakeholders, developing functional design and specifications to quality and transformation requirements to developing test cases for highly complex projects, she has also simultaneously managed project staff and resources to ensure all milestones are delivered on time and within budget.

Subi Zhang

Subi Zhang, Data Science Consultant at Deloitte

"My passion is to understand and empower business through data science approaches."

Previous Degree: Bachelor of Management, Beijing Forestry University
Prior Experience: Xiaomi, Publicis Media
Program: MDS Vancouver, Class of 2017

Two years ago, I decided to make a bold career change moving from human resources into data analysis. I made it happen through the UBC MDS program. MDS helped me gain the knowledge and skill sets required as a data science professional. The final capstone project was amazing: I obtained hands-on industrial experience on real-world data science problems in a collaborative manner. As an international student, I also felt MDS provided an excellent immersive environment that greatly improved my English in a short period of time.

About Subi Zhang

Subi is a self-motivated learner who keeps extending her career through her curiosity for business and technology. She started her career as a technical recruiter at Xiaomi supporting the advertising algorithm team, where she got in-depth exposure to multiple business applications in machine learning. This peaked her interest in data science and she took a job as a data analyst in Publicis Media where she helped advertising clients make informed decisions. She is currently employed as a Data Science Consultant at Deloitte in Toronto, Ontario.