Our Team
Giuseppe Carenini — Director
“One of the most unique aspects of this program is that it is designed for students whose main expertise is not in CS and Stats, but rather in other fields like life sciences, healthcare, business, and journalism; after graduation our students will be ready to effectively work as data scientist in those domains.”
Joining the University of British Columbia’s Computer Science Faculty in 2004, Giuseppe Carenini has been teaching artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing, for over 15 years. In his research, Giuseppe has focused on text summarization, information visualization, and decision support, publishing over 120 peer-reviewed publications and receiving two best-paper awards – one from the UMAP 2014 conference (premier user modeling conference ) and the other from the ACM-TiiS-14 journal (top journal on Intelligent Interfaces). Giuseppe’s research has been applied by companies like Microsoft, IBM, Google, Huawei and Yahoo to develop summarization techniques for product reviews and for conversational data (e.g., emails and blog), as well as basic techniques for discourse parsing and topic modelling. Giuseppe has also collaborated with local companies that aim to make data more useful in supporting complex decisions (Compass) and for public engagement (Metroquest). Currently, he is serving as the ConVISation Labs Chief Scientific Officer, with the goal of transferring his research on text analytics to the healthcare domain, in collaboration with the WelTel company
Garrett Nicolai — Program Director and Assistant Professor
“It’s a really exciting time to be working in NLP. The field has been revolutionized multiple times in the past decade, and we are seeing great progress solving problems that were unfathomable in the past. I’m thrilled to be working with the MDS-CL as we prepare students to process, analyse, and model data that is increasing at an unprecedented rate.”
Garrett Nicolai joined the MDS Computational Linguistics program in 2020 as a post-doctoral researcher and Capstone mentor, before becoming an Assistant Professor of Teaching. Garrett completed his MSc. in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Regina before obtaining a PhD in NLP at the University of Alberta, completing a BA in Linguistics along the way. Before coming to Vancouver, Garrett was a post-doctoral researcher at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Language and Speech Processing, working on low-resource computational morphology. His research interests lie in improving the quality of computational tools for under-resourced languages, including the construction of computational corpora for such purposes.
Scott Mackie — Assistant Professor
“Language is a critical component of artificial intelligence. Solving the field’s more challenging problems will require a combination of data science, machine learning, and linguistics. The traditional split between arts and sciences means that few people end up with this blend of skills. The MDS-CL program fills that gap, providing a cross-disciplinary education that helps graduates stand out in the job market.”
Scott Mackie received his Ph.D in Linguistics from the University of British Columbia in 2017. He is interested in creating computational research tools, and was a founding member of the UBC Phonology Tools group, writing software for analyzing both spoken and signed languages. He spent 2018-2024 at Amazon, developing natural language understanding models for the Alexa voice assistant. He was also co-author on Amazon’s M.A.S.S.I.V.E dataset, a parallel corpus of over 1M sentences spanning 51 languages. He returned to UBC in 2024 as an Assistant Professor in the MDS Computational Linguistics program. His current research focusses on using Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) techniques to improve the response quality of generative language models.
Jungyeul Park — Lecturer
“UBC’s MDS Computational Linguistics is the study of data science and linguistics that empower students to be future ready with tools in computational linguistics. I’m excited to work with our students and explore the new era of natural language processing.”
Jungyeul Park received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the Université Paris Diderot (Paris VII) in 2006. His interest in natural language processing motivated him to pursue Linguistics after initially studying Computer Science. His current research interests include machine learning approaches for morphology and syntax of natural language. He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) and an affiliate assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics at University of Washington (Seattle, USA). Before that he was a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics at the State University of New York at Buffalo during 2018-2019, a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona during 2016-2017, a research scientist at CEA (Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives) during 2015-2016, and a lecturer (attaché temporaire d’enseignement et de recherche) in the Department of Computer Sciences at IUT de Lannion (Université de Rennes 1) during the academic year 2013-2014.
Jian Zhu — Assistant Professor
“I am thrilled to be teaching the MDS-CL program at a time when Natural Language Processing (NLP) is advancing at a rapid pace. With breakthroughs in deep learning, we are witnessing a revolution in the way machines understand and process human language. As an instructor, I am excited to share my knowledge and expertise with the students, and to guide them as they explore the latest NLP techniques and technologies. It is an exciting time to be at the forefront of this field, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for NLP and its applications.”
Jian Zhu received his Ph.D. degree in Linguistics and Scientific Computing from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2022. After his Ph.D., Jian had conducted NLP research both in the industry and in the academia. Before joining UBC, Jian was a post-doctoral research fellow in the School of Information at University of Michigan, working on the large-scale computational sociolinguistics. His current research interests lie in teaching machines to recognize spoken languages across the world and unstanding people’s linguistic behavior in the online communities through large-scale computational methods.
Kenna McEwan — Program Manager
“I’m inspired by the work ethic and drive of the MDS students and am excited to support students in creating a healthy learning environment as they delve into the study of data science.”
Kenna McEwan is born and raised in British Columbia and received her Bachelors in Linguistics at the University of British Columbia. Prior to taking on the Masters of Data Science - Computational Linguistics Program Manager role, she has worked at UBC in both undergraduate and research-based graduate programs, where she gained skills in navigating post-secondary administration. Kenna is committed to supporting students in having a positive experience during their time in the program, from application to graduation.
Sonya Thomlinson — Career Advisor
“Data Science is a vast and exciting field with the potential to create enormous impact across all sectors and industries. I’m thrilled to be part of one of the highest rated Data Science Professional Programs in Canada.”
Sonya Thomlinson has been an entrepreneur for over 20 years as a founder of multiple businesses as well as a US non-profit. Sonya has been building relationships and working with individuals to help them attain their career goals in the MDS program at UBC Okanagan and CL in Vancouver. Since joining UBC in 2022, Sonya has enjoyed the energy and excitement on campus and is passionate about helping students prepare for their future careers, discover their own areas of passion, and ensure that they have the tools to succeed to their fullest potential.
Adrianne Chang — Graduate Program Assistant
Adrianne supports the graduate students within the Department of Linguistics which includes the MA, PhD and MDS-CL students. She is a recent graduate of UBC with a major in Linguistics and minor in Language and Literacy Education. She previously worked in the department as the Linguistics Summer Camp Coordinator and planned out a summer camp curriculum surrounding Linguistics for kids!
Vanessa Ho — Marketing Coordinator
“I am always amazed and blown away with all the students who pass through the MDS program. They all come from diverse backgrounds who learn from each other as they go through this intensive 10-month program on their path to a new career in data science.”
Vanessa Ho obtained her Bachelor’s of Journalism degree from the University of Regina and worked for four years as a technology journalist in Toronto. Vanessa moved back to Vancouver in 2008 and transitioned into a career as a digital content creator for a variety of technology companies in the Vancouver area. She started at the MDS program in 2018 as the marketing coordinator chronicling the MDS student journey. Outside of MDS, Vanessa is a pop culture enthusiast and enjoys biking and baking.
Carla Hudson Kam — Linguistics Department Head
Carla has a PhD from the University of Rochester, and her research focuses on first and second language acquisition, developmental language production and processing, gesture and langugae learning and processing, non-linguistic constraints on language learning and language form, language contact and language change. Carla is a Google Scholar, and is the founder of the Language and Learning Lab at UBC.
Muhammad Abdul-Mageed — Assistant Professor (On Leave)
“Deep learning is revolutionary. Some of the most exciting progress in deep learning is happening with language. It is in your car, your browser, and your pocket. Deep learning of language is in its infancy, with fascinating progress ahead.”
Muhammad Abdul-Mageed is an Assistant Professor of Computational Linguistics, Information Science, and Computer Science and Director of the Natural Language Processing Lab at the UBC. He is a core member of UBC Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems and Centre for Artificial Intelligence Decision-making and Action. His research focuses on developing novel deep learning methods for natural language socio-pragmatics, with a goal to build `social’ machines to enhance human health and well-being.