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

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
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 2019

Mohsen Zardadi

Mohsen Zardadi, Data Scientist at Terra Sense Analytics

"I have found people in Kelowna so friendly and easy to connect and students might find much better opportunities here. I strongly recommend students to consider small communities like Kelowna." 

Previous Degree: PhD, Electrical Engineering, University of Birjand
Program: MDS Okanagan – Class of 2019

I have been working with image data for a long time so, I was kind of familiar with machine learning, AI, and programming. I believe what we are doing with big data, machine learning, and AI is just the tip of the iceberg. It is like the internet in the 90s. I did so much research and talked to many people before I make my decision and switch to data science. 

About Mohsen Zardadi

Mohsen has a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Birjand and worked for Burnaby-based Kardium, a medical devices company, as a Usability Team Member. It was while in this role, he could see that everything is getting affected by machine learning and AI and saw a bright future for data science. Since graduating, Mohsen works as a data scientist for Kelowna-based TerraSense Analytics.
Meet Mohsen

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.