Data Science Industry Networking Event

Ashkan Amiri, BlackBerry

Ashkan is the Director of Data Science at Advanced Technology Development Labs, BlackBerry. He leads a data science innovation team that focuses on developing new solutions for AI-powered cybersecurity and safety. Prior to his role at BlackBerry, Ashkan worked at Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) where he built RBC's Cyber Analytics program from the ground up as the program’s Director and Chief Data Scientist. During his tenure, Ashkan led a team of data scientists and developers to create and operationalize novel business and technology controls for proactive identification of cyber threats and fraud.

Ashkan has double masters in Management and Biomedical Engineering. He also earned a PhD degree in Computational Science and Engineering from McMaster University. His PhD dissertation on “The Impact of Attention on Perception” demonstrates how lessons learned from cognitive neuroscience can improve the robustness of AI algorithms in the face of uncertainties in the environment.

Anil K. Goel, SAP

Vice President of Engineering

Anil K Goel is Vice President of Engineering at SAP where he works with the globally distributed SAP HANA and Analytics Database engineering team to drive forward looking architectures, vision, strategy and execution for SAP HANA Data Lake, XOLTP and connectivity data management products and technologies, including Sybase database products. He oversees data platform related co-innovation projects with hardware and software partners as well as collaborative research and internship programs with many universities in North America. His interests include database system architecture, in-memory and large-scale distributed computing, self-management of software systems and cost modelling.

Anil earned a PhD in computer science from University of Waterloo. He also holds M.Tech. (CS) from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and B.E. (Electronics and Communications Engineering) from University of Delhi.

Also joining for breakout sessions:

• Yogi Joshi, Senior Developer
• Xiao (Shawn) Meng, Software Developer
• Jeff Pound, Product Architect, HANA Data Lake

Melanie Poulin-Costello, Hoffman La-Roche

Director, Biostatistics

Melanie Poulin-Costello is Director of Biostatistics in product development at Hoffman La-Roche. Melanie started her career in the pharmaceutical industry as a clinical trial statistician at Bayer. She became project lead statistician for Nexavar©, the first treatment for renal cell carcinoma. After 9 years at Bayer, Melanie then worked at Amgen where she covered many therapeutic areas including oncology, rheumatoid arthritis, nephritis. She worked on clinical trials as well as Health Technology Assessment and Real World Evidence. Now, having been at Roche for almost 4 years, she oversees oncology drug development. In her time as Mississauga site head, she built a biostatistics department to about 35 biostatisticians currently. Melanie is also involved in novel approaches to drug development, specifically she is Roche’s business lead on the TransCelerate Placebo/Standard of Care data sharing initiative. Melanie is an active member of Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry (PSI) and often participating in biostatistics seminars and training in the GTA. Melanie has her undergrad BMath from the University of Waterloo and an MSc in statistics from University of Victoria.

Melanie has lived and worked in mainland China and has 3 adult children. In her spare time Melanie loves to paint and draw and has been successful in local community artist projects. She is able to travel more and more with her husband now that her children are on their own. Their first trip in 2020 will be scuba diving in Belize.

Also joining for breakout sessions:

• Harper Forbes, Principal Statistical Scientist
• Mark Yan, Principal Statistical Scientist
• Kasra Yousefi, Principal Statistical Scientist

Eugene Wen, Manulife Financial

Vice President, Group Advanced Analytics

Eugene Wen is the Vice President for Group Advanced Analytics at Manulife Financial. He leads data scientist teams in supporting corporate functions, creates governance and policy frameworks for analytics, and establish research and development (R&D) capabilities in advanced analytics to support businesses across the company. Eugene is passionate about using data and analysis to support strategic and operational decision-making. He spends substantial time in recruiting and developing advanced analytics talents.

Prior to his current position at the Manulife Financial, Eugene served as the Vice President and Chief Statistician at the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (WSIB) of Ontario. He obtained his DrPH (Doctor of Public Health) from School of Public Health, University of Texas.

Also joining for breakout sessions:

• Mateusz Ujma, AVP-R&D for AI
• Shobhit Jain, Lead Data Scientist

As director of Advanced Analytics at the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), Jeff Hatcher’s responsibilities and interests include use of statistical and machine learning methods in the development of models for managing the health system and for protecting the privacy of personal health information. Jeff is also currently leading a multi-year initiative to modernize the software stack used by CIHI staff in their analytic work and to evolve the data science methods and practices at CIHI.

Prior to joining CIHI in 2002, he worked at several other public and private organizations, most notably Statistics Canada and Bell Canada. Jeff is a statistician and economist by training.

Yannick Lallement holds a PhD in artificial intelligence from the French National Institute of Computer Science. He joined Scotiabank in 2017 as a senior data scientist, working on the Bank's new mobile app. In 2021, he was appointed Vice President, Global Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning. In 2022, his mandate was extended to include Analytics for Corporate Functions. He is responsible for developing the use and the benefits of AI/ML technologies throughout the Bank.

Prior to joining Scotiabank, Yannick held a series of roles supporting AI/ML projects for different public and private organizations.

Eugene Wen is the Vice President for Group Advanced Analytics at Manulife Financial. He leads data scientist teams in supporting corporate functions, creates governance and policy frameworks for analytics, and establish research and development (R&D) capabilities in advanced analytics to support businesses across the company. Eugene is passionate about using data and analysis to support strategic and operational decision-making. He spends substantial time in recruiting and developing advanced analytics talents.

Prior to his current position at the Manulife Financial, Eugene served as the Vice President and Chief Statistician at the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (WSIB) of Ontario. He obtained his DrPH (Doctor of Public Health) from School of Public Health, University of Texas.

M. Tamer Özsu is a University Professor of Computer Science at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science of the University of Waterloo where he holds a Cheriton Faculty Fellowship. He also holds a Distinguished Visiting Professor position at Tsinghua University. He is the Founding Director of Waterloo-Huawei Joint Innovation Laboratory since 2018.

His research is in data engineering aspects of data science particularly addressing data management issues with two foci: management of non-traditional data and large-scale distributed data management.