Big Data & Data Analytics Panel

It's a big deal if you haven't heard! The term “Big Data” describes any voluminous amount of structured, semi-structured and unstructured data that has the potential to be mined for information. Join us to hear from a panel of professionals from various Big Data and Data Analytics specialties! Learn more about their jobs, current trends, and future opportunities in this fast growing career area.

Jason Stanley
Head of Insights & Senior Research at Breather

Jason Stanley is Head of Insights and Senior Researcher at Breather, a Montreal-based start-up providing on-demand access to highly-curated private space for work and relaxation. In the past, he has worked as Head of Product for a food-technology company, as a labor market policy analyst for the Federal Government, and as a researcher in the United States, Canada, Europe, India, and elsewhere. Jason holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University and graduate degrees in the social sciences from Oxford University.

Geneviève Smith
Program Director at Insight Data Science

Geneviève Smith is a Program Director at Insight Data Science (http://insightdatascience.com), an education startup up that helps scientists and engineers transition to careers in data science, analytics, and data engineering. Founded in 2012, Insight has over 500 alumni working as data scientists and engineers at companies such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Airbnb, Bloomberg, the New York Times, the Broad Institute and many others. Geneviève has a PhD in Ecology, Evolution & Behavior from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to that, she completed her B.Sc. and M.Sc. at McGill, in the department of Biology.

Jean-François Bélisle
Manager, Data Aggregation and Reporting, National Bank of Canada.

Over the last 10 years, Jean-François Bélisle has managed teams and provided expertise in Customer Intelligence (Loyalty Marketing, Advanced Segmentation Methods), in Digital Marketing (Web Analytics, Strategic Planning, SEM / PPC) and in Advanced Statistical Methods.  Jean-François Bélisle studied at the Ph.D. level in Marketing and Computational Statistics at McGill University; he earned an M.Sc. in Marketing from HEC Montréal, a B.Sc. in Economics from Université de Montréal and an Award of Achievement in Web Analytics from the University of British Columbia.  Prior to joining the National Bank of Canada, Jean-François managed ROI-Driven Analytics teams for Digital Agencies (Adviso, Parkour3, K3 Media) and in Loyalty Marketing at LoyaltyOne (AIR MILES). He has also been a consultant in Strategy and Analytics primarily in: Banking (National Bank of Canada, BDC), Retailing (Jean Coutu, Rona), Tourism (Hyatt, Hôtellerie Champêtre, Tourisme Laval), Media (RDS, Bell, Astral Media) and for Governments & Associations (BDC, Quebec’s Casinos, OIIQ, FTQ, AQT, OACIQ). He also taught Market Analysis, Digital Marketing and Web Analytics to Undergraduate and MBA students at HEC Montréal and Université Laval and is frequently invited to present at events organized by Les Affaires and Infopresse.

Luis Da Costa
Data Scientist and Data Architect,  Mediative

Luis works as a Data Scientist and Data Architect at Mediative (mediative.com), a thought leader in digital marketing. Part of the Yellow Pages Canada Group, Mediative helps businesses cut through the digital clutter so they can better perform in an otherwise complex digital landscape, and ultimately reach, engage, and convert more potential customers. Some of Mediative's clients are Disney, P&G, RBC and Walmart. Luis' work at Mediative involves high-level research and development position in a specialized big data team that is the analytics hub for the overall organization.  Luis has a PhD in computer science and comes from the academic ranks, where he researched and applied evolutionary optimization methods to a variety of problems. He has also worked in the field of artificial intelligence and in more traditional computer science problems (e.g., compiler design and implementation, systems development).

Solmaz Shahalizadeh, Senior Data Team LEad, Shopify

Solmaz is senior data team lead at Shopify, providing financial data-driven insights to the world’s fastest growing e-commerce platform. With multiple graduate degrees in machine learning and computer science, she has employed her skills in cancer research, finance and e-commerce for the past 8 years. At Shopify, her team owns the implementation and analysis of all non-GAAP metrics using technologies such as Apache Spark, Hadoop, etc. She has a passion for building high quality data warehouses and data products that ensure accuracy and agility of analysis and impact the user's daily life. Prior to Shopify, she worked at Morgan Stanley as an analyst and a developer.

Azadeh Shohoudi, Biostatistician, Montreal Health Innovations Coordinating Center

Azadeh shohoudi is a Biostatistician at the Montreal Health Innovations Coordinating Center (MHICC), clinical academic research organization, that provides services to the academic community and to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries, in the fields of cardiology, neurology, oncology, dermatology, endocrinology and Pharmacogenomics. She is the Biostatistician of a research team at the electrophyso cardiology department of the Montreal Heart Institute, ranked in first place in Canada for research intensity, as revealed in "Canada's Top 40 Research Hospitals List". She assists researchers and cardiologists, conducting research studies and analyze their data, as well as in their publications. She has been doing a part-time postdoctoral study for last five months at the department of Mathematics and Statistics at McGill where she has completed her doctoral program. Her PhD thesis was on dimension reduction in large data problem with change-points. She has been working with administrative data such as RAMQ as well as multinational epidemiology studies. She has completed a two years of PhD in Iran as well as her B.Sc., and M.Sc.. She has thought university course levels in Iran and worked as a statistical consultant for  business companies as well as research teams in Iran as well.