Vasiliki (Verena) Kantere
Vasiliki (Verena) Kantere is a full Professor at School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering, University of Ottawa.
Leader of the M2oDA research team and lab.
Amin Kamali
Amin Kamali is a Ph.D. candidate in Digital Transformation and Innovation at the University of Ottawa.
Over the past decade, he occupied diverse roles at IBM, all centered around Data and AI. These roles have spanned a spectrum from Business Intelligence to Digital Transformation, Data Science, and Machine Learning. Amin holds a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from Sharif University of Technology and an M.Sc. in Systems Science from the University of Ottawa. His primary research interest revolves around the latest AI breakthroughs and their potential in transforming data systems. Amin’s Ph.D. research is focused on robust query optimization and processing and the implications of using Machine Learning in this area. Amin has been privileged to organize multiple workshops and to present at several academic conferences. He has 10+ publications and has filed multiple patents with the US Patent Office.
Yi Chen
Yi Chen is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the University of Ottawa.
Yi obtained her master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Ottawa. She is strongly interested in research fields including machine learning and time-series data. She proposed an automated model selection technique during her master’s research. She is willing to lay a more solid theoretical and practical ability in computer and data science, which will significantly benefit her future academic career.
Ning Wang
Ning Wang was a MSc thesis student at the University of Ottawa, specializing in Applied Artificial Intelligence.
His research primarily focuses on applying Machine Learning and Deep Learning technologies for query optimization, specifically for enhancing Cost Models. My notable work included the development of "A Hybrid Cost Model for Evaluating Query Execution Plans," which has been recognized by IEEE. Additionally, this research has led to filings a patent application with the United States Patent Office.
Baoming Chang
Baoming Chang is a MSc thesis student in Computer Science at the University of Ottawa.
His research interests are graph neural networks and machine learning for query optimization, specifically query plan representation and explainability for cost models. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science from the East China University of Science and Technology.
Chang Liu
Chang Liu is a MSc thesis student at the University of Ottawa.
He received his bachelor's degree from Carleton University in 2022 and became a master’s student at the University of Ottawa in the same year. His research area is join order selection using machine learning, which includes representation learning and reinforcement learning.
Sina Negarandeh
Sina Negarandeh is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Computer Science at the University of Ottawa, with a specialization in Applied Artificial Intelligence.
He earned his B.Sc. in Computer Engineering from the University of Tehran, where he focused on the intersection of natural language processing and social sciences to identify hate speech. His research interests revolve around machine learning and natural language processing, where he aims to tackle intricate, real-world problems. He is enthusiastic about discovering novel applications where the latest machine learning techniques can make a significant impact, particularly in interdisciplinary domains.
Shengchen Liu
Shengchen Liu graduated from College of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Shenzhen University, majoring in computer science and technology during the undergraduate studies. Currently, he is pursuing a degree of MCS with focus in AAI at University of Ottawa.
Harsh Narayan Jha
Harsh is a MSc thesis student at the University of Ottawa, specializing in Applied AI. Harsh obtained his Bachelors of Computer Science from the University of California, Santa Cruz. His interests lie primarily in query optimization using Machine Learning.
Parna Asadi
Parna completed her B.Sc. in Computer Engineering at the University of Tehran in 2023, where she worked on a long-term project focused on machine learning and enhancing user interactions with enterprise applications. Her research interests lie in machine learning and data management, particularly in addressing efficiency challenges. She is passionate about exploring innovative solutions that leverage data modeling techniques to drive meaningful improvements, especially in enterprise contexts.
Melika Morafegh
Melika Morafegh is a Master's student in Computer Science, specializing in Applied Artificial Intelligence. She completed her bachelor's in Computer Engineering at the University of Tehran. Her research interests include machine learning and data analytics, particularly their applications in interdisciplinary domains.
Jing Hu
Jing Hu has over 10 years of experience as a piping engineer in China, coordinating multidisciplinary teams, ensuring compliance with industrial/local/national regulations, and delivering high-level engineering designs for clients. He holds a Master's degree in Chemical Engineering and Technology from Hefei University of Technology and, more recently, a Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering Technology at McMaster University. In January 2025, he began pursuing a Master’s in Computer Science at the University of Ottawa.
Junbo Tang
Junbo completed both his graduate and undergraduate studies in Computer Science at the University of Ottawa, where he developed a profound interest in the Data Management field. During his graduate studies, he had the privilege of working in Dr. Kantere's group, where he focused on enhancing data retrieval efficiency through machine learning and conducted a series of tests on how to implement zero-shot learning within DBMS.
Divyanshu Verma
Divyanshu is a second year M.Sc. graduate with 7 years of software engineering experience building scalable applications across mobile and web ecosystem. During his tenure with the program, he aimed to explore applications of machine learning techniques in the field of software engineering. He won the New Comer of the Year award at Cvent India Pvt Ltd for his outstanding contribution within a year joining the company. When he is not busy fixing a production bug or writing unit tests, he enjoys exploring the city parks, fried chicken outlets and of late has been a bubble tea fanatic.
Mahalakshmi Muthuvel
Mahalakshmi completed her Master of Computer Science at the University of Ottawa. During her studies, she worked on a project called Query Craft, a sandbox environment designed for learning and practicing PostgreSQL queries. She is passionate about databases and data management, with previous industry experience in time series data management. A curious individual with a zest for technology.
Yuxuan (Eric) Sun
Yuxuan (Eric) Sun is an MCS project student at the University of Ottawa. He earned his bachelor’s degree in software engineering from the Harbin Institute of Technology, where he developed a strong foundation in programming and problem-solving. As a former software engineer at China Merchants Bank, he specializes in Java backend and Web development. During his time with Prof. Kantere's team, he completed a project focused on query-driven cardinality estimation. His research interests include applied AI and deep learning.
Ka Chun Sie
Ka Chun is pursuing a Master of Computer Science degree at the University of Ottawa. He obtained his B.Eng. in Software Engineering from Sichuan University. Under the supervision of Prof. Kantere, he completed a project on lightweight vector database.
Haonan Chen
Haonan Chen is a student of Master of Computer Science in University of Ottawa. Now a team member of Movement Labs, NodeKit. During his time at Prof Kantere's lab, he completed a project related to blockchain oracle based on the redistributive Schelling-Coin game.