YOUR TEAM
HERE EVERY STEP OF THE WAY TO MAKE SURE
YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS
YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS
MENTORS & INSTRUCTORS
TANABY MOFRAD
DIRECTOR OF DATA SCIENCE
Tanaby Zibamanzar Mofrad is a senior data scientists at Scotia Bank. He uses Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning as one of the main parts of his job and he has a great knowledge in analytics and big data related tools. He has received his masters degree in computer science from Brock university and has been working in data science and data analysis industry for more than 5 years.
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DR. ALIREZA HOJJATI
DATA SCIENTIST
Dr Hojjati is a Data Scientist at Genworth Financial after moving on from Manulife Financial Corporation. He is an expert in Machine Learning, Predictive Analytics, Bayesian Inference, Gaussian Processes, Monte Carlo Simulation, PCA and Recommender Systems. He has a PhD in Astrophysics from British Columbia.
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DR. MARKIYAN SLOBODA
VP OF CAPITAL MARKETS
Dr. Markiyan Sloboda finished his PhD in Computer Science from University of Guelph. His research was related to applying artificial intelligence to model calibration. Then he joined TD Bank as manager of Advanced Analytics in the Anti-Money Laundering department. He and his team of four PhD scientists were responsible for building predictive models to identify suspicious transactions for 2.5 years. After that Dr. Sloboda joined Bank of Montreal (BMO) as a manager in Model Vetting, focusing on models related to pricing derivatives. He was responsible for validating equity, interest rate and exotic options for more than three years. Currently, Dr. Sloboda is working as a Vice President in BMO Capital Markets, responsible for developing equity vanilla pricing models and supporting the volatility trading desk in their everyday activities. During his tenure at TD and BMO, Dr. Sloboda was also teaching for 3 years at the Ted Rodgers Business School, Ryerson University.
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DR. DMITRY VYUSHIN
DIRECTOR OF FIXED INCOME CASH ANALYTICS
Dr. Dmitry Vyushin is a Director in Non-Trading Book Risk Modelling Team of Market Risk Department at RBC. He is currently developing a new Enterprise VaR system that covers Trading, Treasury, Insurance, and Pension portfolios. After graduating from the University of Toronto with a PhD in Physics in 2009, he joined the Operational Risk Department of Scotiabank. In 2012, he was promoted to the position of Director, Enterprise Risk Stress Testing at Scotiabank, where he led the development of statistical Non-Retail and Retail Credit Risk Stress Testing models. In the beginning of 2015 Dmitry assumed the role of Director, Market & Counterparty Credit Risk Modelling at the Bank of Montreal, where he was involved in the redevelopment of an existing Trading Book IRC model into a Monte-Carlo based model for Credit, Counterparty Credit, and CVA economic capital calculation.
LINKEDIN DR. MAHDI SHAHBAB
SENIOR DATA SCIENTIST
Dr. Mahdi Shahbaba is a Senior Data Scientist in Marketing Science team at RBC. He is currently working on Machine Learning models for product recommendation, pricing, and customer profitability. Prior to RBC, he was a Lead Data Scientist in Digital Factory and Decision Sciences departments at Scotiabank, where he developed ML models for fraud prevention and marketing campaigns.He has a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Ryerson University with the main focus on Unsupervised Machine Learning.
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AMIRSINA ESKANDARIFAR
DATA SCIENTIST
Amirsina is a Specialist Analytics and Data Scientist at Interac Co. He has done his masters in Mechanical Engineering at University of Toronto, and his thesis was about improving a computational fluid dynamic model in C++. His great programming skills and interest in statistics brought him to the field of machine learning. He started his professional career as a data scientist, machine learning engineer at Acerta Analytics Solution. At Acerta, he worked on anomaly detection models for different mechanical systems. He is currently working in finance sector and develops different statistical models for analytics and fraud department of Interac Co. Amirsina is very passionate about teaching, and follows this passion as a part-time instructor.
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ROMAN CHERKASHYN
STRATEGY, PLANNING & OPERATIONAL GOVERNANCE
Roman is a Banking professional with 15+ years of experience with Canadian and International banks. A subject matter expert in Finance – Management Reporting & Accounting, Planning & Forecasting, Product profitability, Cost controlling. Roman has a Master’s degree in Finance, he obtained a Certified Professional Accountant (CPA) designation in 2017.Currently, Roman is a member of the Scotia Bank, Finance team. He has hands-on experience with Excel from Day 1 on job. Throughout his career he’s worked with, pretty much, every functionality of Excel, and knows it inside out. He gets tremendous satisfaction from facilitating in the development of other people – career advice, CPA mentoring, and now his new undertaking – Excel Instruction.
Away from work, Roman is a father of two teenagers. He is a passionate angler & table tennis player.
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BEHNAM HAIJAN
AWS SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT
PIERINO ZINDEL
SOFTWARE DEVELOPER
After graduating from the University of Toronto in programs of computational physics and applied mathematics, Pierino has gone on to leverage his skills as a Python developer and analyst. His love of data and interest in teaching brought him to Lantern where he helps students build a strong understanding of fundamentals and intuition necessary for pursuing a career in data science and analytics.
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HAMID ELAHI
FINANCE LECTURER
Hamid is a Ph.D. candidate of Management Science at Ivey Business School. He also has a master's degree in Money and Finance from the House of Finance, Goethe University, Germany. For his master's thesis, he worked on the pricing of exotic options in a stochastic volatility environment. He is continually teaching Financial Derivatives courses at King's University College at Western University.
LINKEDIN MOATAZ EL AYADI
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, DATA SCIENTIST
Dr. El Ayadi is an Associate Director in the Operational Risk Analytics team which is a part ofthe Group Risk Management (GRM), Royal Bank of Canada. He is currently leading the technical team towards developing Natural Language Processing (NLP) solutions that address business needs and implementing efficient and standardized ETL pipelines for computing key risk indicators (KRIs).Dr. El Ayadi earned his PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo (Pattern Analysis and Machine Learning (PAMI) lab) in 2009. Dr. El Ayadi was a Data Scientist in the Decision Sciences department at Scotiabank where he was leading the AI for Speech Insights team to develop voice-enabled business solutions using both Speech Recognition and NLP methods.
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ARYAN YAGHOUBIAN
SENIOR DESIGN ENGINEER
Aryan is a senior design engineer at AMD. He is currently woking in video CODECS team to design and deliver high quality video solutions for the upcoming gaming consoles and graphic cards. He is currently responsible for modelling as well as optimizing core video modules to enhance the overall video quality.Aryan did his M.Sc at Concordia university in Montréal. As part of his thesis, he worked with Thales aerospace to deliver a highly accurate proximity measurement solution for aircrafts.When he is not working, he is hanging out with his friends or playing drums.
He is also currently a Senior Product Manager at Ideal.com where he leads the development of a product that helps connect job-seekers to their ideal jobs.
He has also led engineering teams and built software products from inception to delivery in multiple tech startups in the past 8 years.
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MOHAMMED GILANI
SENIOR DATA ENGINEER
Mohammad Hossein Sedighi Gilani is a senior data engineer at Paytm Labs. He has years of software development experience across various industries including Mobile And Desktop App Development, Web Development, Embedded Systems and Big data software development.During these years, he’s had the chance to work in a diverse range of companies, from a pre-seed startup to a large-scale corporation. When it comes to teaching and mentorship, he brings with him a wealth of knowledge and passion for those early on in their career lives.
Aryan did his M.Sc at Concordia university in Montréal. As part of his thesis, he worked with Thales aerospace to deliver a highly accurate proximity measurement solution for aircrafts.When he is not working, he is hanging out with his friends or playing drums.
He is also currently a Senior Product Manager at Ideal.com where he leads the development of a product that helps connect job-seekers to their ideal jobs.
He has also led engineering teams and built software products from inception to delivery in multiple tech startups in the past 8 years.
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ALLA KOROLKO
DIRECTOR OF DATA SCIENCE
Alla is a founder of Tech Talent Lab, professional services IT recruitment company that is servicing small and large size organizations around GTA.Alla is very passionate about building Toronto IT communities that have a positive impact and is proud to support the mission of her team – helping people find their dream jobs, by connecting leading companies with top IT professionals.Alla has extensive experience in providing recruitment services to organizations in various industries, including Financial Services, Healthcare, and all levels of the Government sector in Canada.
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DAVID JORJANI
SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGER
David Jorjani is a Sessional Lecturer at the University of Toronto where he teaches courses on software engineering, software design, and entrepreneurship. He loves training and development and has been mentoring and coaching for years.He is also currently a Senior Product Manager at Ideal.com where he leads the development of a product that helps connect job-seekers to their ideal jobs.
He has also led engineering teams and built software products from inception to delivery in multiple tech startups in the past 8 years.
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HELEN LUSSIER
SENIOR DATA ENGINEER
Hélène P. Lussier is the president of LUSSIER SEARCH and has a history of placing risk management professionals since 1993 at the senior and mid management levels. She works with experienced global risk professionals whose careers have taken them throughout the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and beyond.Her company’s areas of search and recruitment include: Financial Engineering, Quantitative Analytics, Risk Modeling, Derivatives Pricing and Valuations, Risk Model Vetting and Validation, Risk Audit, Risk Reporting and Analysis, Counterparty Credit Risk, Economic and Regulatory Capital, Regulatory Compliance, Internal Risk Ratings, Basel II and III, V-a-R, Market and Liquidity Risk, Credit Risk, AIRB, Operational Risk, AMA approach, Enterprise Risk Management.
During these years, he’s had the chance to work in a diverse range of companies, from a pre-seed startup to a large-scale corporation. When it comes to teaching and mentorship, he brings with him a wealth of knowledge and passion for those early on in their career lives.
Aryan did his M.Sc at Concordia university in Montréal. As part of his thesis, he worked with Thales aerospace to deliver a highly accurate proximity measurement solution for aircrafts.When he is not working, he is hanging out with his friends or playing drums.
He is also currently a Senior Product Manager at Ideal.com where he leads the development of a product that helps connect job-seekers to their ideal jobs.
He has also led engineering teams and built software products from inception to delivery in multiple tech startups in the past 8 years.
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ESMAEIL SAFAEI
MANAGER QUANT & CAPITAL MARKETS
Dr. Esmaeil Safaei is currently a risk manager in RBC Capital Markets. Prior to his current role, Esmaeil was working as a Quantitative Analyst at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan among a skillful team whose expertise was entrusted in the financial security of 316,000 retired teachers. Despite his foothold in the financial industry, he had his beginnings in engineering. After earning his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto, he made a brave decision of changing his career in order to pursue his true interests. Having been fascinated by questions regarding the science of money management, the theories of economics, and understanding the financial problems, he obtained his Master of Financial Mathematics at McMaster University.
LINKEDIN The instructors are busy professionals, but they generously
exchange ideas and supervise the projects and usually
accept mentorship requests.
exchange ideas and supervise the projects and usually
accept mentorship requests.
MANAGEMENT TEAM
DR. HANIF MONTAZERI
DIRECTOR OF DATA SCIENCE
Dr. Hanif Montazeri is a computational physicist with expertise in high performance computing, algorithm design, and advanced numerical techniques. Being a software entrepreneur while at the same time an adjunct faculty member at the University of Toronto, Dr. Montazeri has a clear view of the disconnect between formal education and the job market. As such, under his leadership, this training program was created to help his bright students build a successful career in software related fields. To build this program, he gathered a senior team of software developers and data scientists to develop and teach effective syllabuses containing skills that are actually being used in industries.
LINKEDIN FARHAD KERAMATI
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS
Farhad Keramati is a software developer at NuPhysics Consulting. Along with his proven expertise in programming, Farhad brings to our students a high degree of expertise in teaching, providing our students a strong basis for the advanced modules taught by our industry experts.
LINKEDIN SIMRAT GILL
DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
After graduating from Western University, Simrat went on to pursue a career in the field of Cybersecurity before pursuing a successful career launching business and brand development innovations through various organizations. Currently, Simrat seeks to use her business experience, and love of communication as the director of business development at Lantern Institute. Her unique technical background, as well as her distinguished business experience, allows her to bring an objective and perspective to each situation as she makes sure everything runs smoothly at Lantern and is always ready to answer any questions you might have.
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