PhD - Information retrieval
I have done my undergraduate in Computer Engineering in Iran. However, CE in Iran includes both Software and Hardware areas. As I chose Software Engineering on the third year, I can say I studied CS.
Why
did
you
choose
graduate
studies
and
why
did
you
choose
graduate
studies
in
CS?
At
the
end
of
the
fourth
year
of
my
undergraduate
I
started
a
research
project
with
my
supervisor
and
I
got
truly
interested
in
research
and
the
fact
that
it's
very
different
from
passing
courses
and
submitting
assignments.
I
realized
an
undergraduate
degree
won't
fulfill
my
ambition.
I
needed
to
explore
the
areas
of
Computer
Science
I
was
passionate
about
and
that's
how
I
started
my
master's
and
later
PhD
in
Computer
Science.
What
is
your
research
area
and
why
did
you
choose
it?
During
my
undergraduate
study
I
took
two
graduate-level
courses
called
Semantic
Web
and
Knowledge
Engineering
and
Ontology
and
despite
being
the
only
undergraduate
in
the
latter
one,
I
ranked
first
in
both
courses.
This
made
me
more
confident
in
my
field
of
interest,
my
knowledge,
and
my
ability
to
attain
and
accomplish
a
master’s
degree
in
this
field.
Throughout my undergraduate study I realized my passion towards natural language processing (NLP) and text understanding particularly for my native language, Persian. I was very curious to find out how machines can understand what some text is talking about, in the same way that we humans do. For my master's study at York University I started working on word sense disambiguation and machine translation to help machines to understand and process the underlying meanings associated with each word in millions of written texts available on the web. I was keen on beating Google Translate and do a better job in English - Persian translation. And I did! My translator outperformed Google Translate for this language pair and I got a chance to present my paper in a conference in Poland.
Later, I was admitted by University of Waterloo for my PhD study. As a member of the information retrieval group I'm working on search, exploration and learning as a vital activity millions of people are engaged in on a daily basis. I enjoy every moment of my research as it enables me to contribute to finding better ways of searching on the web and help people with finding solutions to their problems and making insightful decisions
Who
is
your
supervisor
and
why
did
you
choose
to
work
with
him/her?
My
supervisor
is
Olga
Vechtomova
from
the
management
science
department.
I
was
very
interested
to
work
with
her
as
her
research
interests
mesh
really
well
with
mine.
She
has
done
many
projects
in
natural
language
processing
and
information
extraction.
She
is
open
to
new
ideas
and
a
great
researcher.
Why
did
you
choose
Waterloo
for
graduate
studies?
If
you
did
your
undergraduate
at
Waterloo,
why
did
you
stay?
Waterloo
is
a
great
university
for
Computer
Science,
with
active
research
labs
and
a
recognized
relation
with
industry.
As
much
as
I
love
being
a
researcher,
I'm
determined
to
work
on
industrial
projects
at
companies
such
as
Google,
LinkedIn,
MS
Research,
etc.
I
believe
UW
can
help
with
connecting
with
recognized
research-based
companies
and
prepare
the
graduate
students
with
the
skills
they
need
to
be
successful
in
their
future
career.
Any
other
information
you'd
like
to
share?
I
lived
in
Columbia
Lake
Village
North
(residence)
for
two
years
and
really
loved
the
experience.
Many
people
may
think
Waterloo
is
a
boring
city
(e.g.,
as
compared
with
Toronto
or
other
big
cities),
but
what
makes
Waterloo
a
very
cool
place
to
live
in
is
the
live
student
community
and
the
fact
that
everyone's
living
very
close
by.
It's
very
easy
to
get
together
to
work,
to
cook,
or
to
party!