Reza Davari PhD Student @ Mila and Concordia University AI enthusiast, currently focused on NLP, CV, and CL. A watermelon connoisseur. Based in Montreal, QC.

This is Reza 👋

I am currently a PhD student at Mila and Concordia University I am interested in Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision and their industrial applications. Currently, my research is focused on the study of continual, federated, and self-supervised learning. I am interested in both the theoretical and applied studies of these domains. I document my learning notes in this blog. Send me an email: davari.mreza@gmail.com if you have questions or find any errors. Thank you 😊

Skills

CareerJun 2022 - Sep 2022 Applied Research Scientist Intern @ Amazon (Science)
                
Developed a novel method based on contrastive learning and self-prediction to learn universal user embeddings
Applied the proposed user embedding to in-production downstream tasks and observed boost in performance
The results were published in AMLC (Amazon internal Machine Learning Conference)

Sep 2021 - Feb 2022 ML Technical Support Specialist @ Ericsson
                
Led the ML technical support of three projects: customer service chatbot, Python code completion, and sensitive log detection
Carried out a series of NLP tutorials on the industrial applications of large scale language models
Conducted workshops on data ingestion, processing, and visualisation

Sep 2021 - Feb 2022 Data Scientist Intern @ Ubisoft Divertissements Inc.
                
Implemented hierarchical span-based toxicity detection model on in-game chat data
Collaborated on implementing data annotation procedures

Sep 2020 - Jun 2021 ML Team Lead @ Coveo Solutions Inc.
                
Led a group of 5 ML Scientist and Engineers on several NLP projects
Collaborated with the product managers to plan road maps and communicate with customers/stakeholders
Researched and implemented multi-task learning models to improve information flow between tasks and reduce resource consumption
Researched and implemented an extractive Question Answering system for clients with minimally labeled data
Adapted Continual Learning techniques to mitigate catastrophic forgetting and reduce training costs

Sep 2019 - Sep 2020 ML Scientist @ Coveo Solutions Inc.
                
Served ML models using TorchServe on Docker images in EMR
Quantized and pruned the ML models to minimize the resources used and maximize throughput
Implemented parallel and distributed model training on GPU
Implemented a dynamic taxonomy prediction for queries, and used attention mechanism to gray-box the model
Researched and implemented Transformer-based query retrieval system for long queries
Implemented product content embedding based on product description and visual representation
Participate in ML recruitment events and conduct technical interviews
Initiated and organized "paper club", a bi-weekly workshop on the recent developments in ML
Represented Coveo at NLP events such as
    MILA,
    RALI,
    MTL-NLP, etc.

May 2019 - Sep 2019 ML Developer Intern @ Coveo Solutions Inc.
                
Implemented parallel model building on EMR clusters
Implemented bigram and trigram model for product recommendation: frequently bought together recommender

Education
                Jan 2021 - 
                Mila
                
                and Concordia University
                
 PhD of Computer Science: Continual Learning (GPA: 4.0)
Supervisors: Dr. Eugene Belilovsky
Scholarships:
           Concordia Merit Scholarship (2021) 
 Graduate Doctoral Incentive Fellowship (2021) 

                Sep 2017 - May 2020
                Concordia University
                
 Master of Computer Science: Natural Language Processing (GPA: 3.95)
Supervisors: Dr. Leila Kosseim and Dr. Tien Bui 
Scholarships:
           Concordia Merit Scholarship (2018 and 2019) 
 Concordia University Conference and Exposition Award (2019) 
 IVADO Student Grant (2020) 

                Sep 2013 - Dec 2016
                McGill University
                
 Bachelor of Science: Double Major in Mathematics and Computer Science
Represented McGill University in Putnam Competition in both 2014 and 2015

                Sep 2011 - May 2013
                Dawson College
                
 DEC in Pure and Applied Science
Dawson Mathematics Competition: 1st place in 2012 and 2nd place in 2011 

Teaching ExperienceMay 2018 - Dec 2019 Teaching Assistant @ Concordia University
                
Comp-472: Artificial Intelligence
Comp-339: Combinatorics
Comp-5361: Discrete Structures and Formal Languages
Comp-335: Introduction to Theoretical Computer Science

September 2015 - May 2016 Teaching Assistant @ McGill University
                
Math-242: Analysis 1
Math-255: Honours Analysis 2

September 2011 - May 2016 Teaching Assistant @ Dawson College
                
Linear Algebra
 Probability and Statistics
 Calculus 1, 2, and 3

September 2013 - May 2016 Private Tutor @ Liberty Tutoring
                
Linear Algebra
 Probability and Statistics
 Calculus 1, 2, and 3
Waves and Optics
Mechanics
Electricity and Magnetism