Meet the team
Leadership
Michael
Brudno
Michael Brudno
Michael Brudno is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto and the Chief Data Scientist at the University Health Network (UHN). He is also a faculty member at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence and the Scientific Director of HPC4Health, a private computing cloud for Ontario hospitals.
Amanda
Silva
Amanda Silva
While working with a clinical research team, Amanda quickly became fascinated with the intricacies of project development and project management and obtained her CSM and PMP. With an interest in clinical workflows and enabling digital technology, she works with the DATA-PRO team helping clinicians, scientists and hospital directors to standardize the use and implementation of patient reported data across UHN.
Dorin
Manase
Dorin Manase
Dorin’s passion is to pursue a career at the intersection of computer science and biology. He joined the DATA Team in 2016 where he combines his aptitude for genetics and genomics research, with a desire to continue to further his computational skills on a variety of patient facing applications geared towards connecting and supporting patient needs to improve clinical care.
Justin
Foong
Justin Foong
Justin received his masters in computer science and MBA from the University of Toronto. He is currently a Health Research Informatics Manager at the University Health Network for the DATA Team. He is interested in software development and computational analysis and their application to improve clinical datasets and healthcare.
Karen
Cranston
Karen Cranston
Karen is a computational biologist with a PhD in Medical Genetics from the University of Albert. She has a longstanding passion for Open Science and has spent a good part of her career trying to make science more efficient and reproducible through better software, coding skills and data management practices. Karen joined DATA as the Technical Project Manager for the CanDIG team in 2021 and is now the CanDIG team lead.
Marta
Girdea
Marta Girdea
Marta began her journey with the DATA Team as a Post-doctoral fellow for Michael Brudno; her area of specialty was the standardization of clinical data. As a postdoc, Marta developed the initial versions of both PhenoTips and PhenomeCentral. Today, she is a Senior Manager for the DATA Team leading the development of the CARDS platform. Marta is responsible for writing specs, reviewing code, designing workflows, setting team objectives and priorities, and when time permits, writing code too.
Pouria
Mashouri
Pouria Mashouri
Pouria is committed to creating global impact in the way healthcare is delivered through collaboration and AI. He has had various occupations in this space including time spent as a system administrator, a bioinformatician, a full-stack web developer, and now as a machine learning specialist where he brings his breadth of experience to his work on the DATA team.
Staff
Andrew Crowther
Andrew Crowther
Andrew graduated from the University of Waterloo in spring 2020 with a degree in computer engineering. Since joining the team, he has been responsible for front- and back-end development on the CARDS projects.
Anna
Lindsay-Mosher
Anna Lindsay-Mosher
Anna joined the team as a developer on the PROM team, where she works on patient-facing applications. She has a passion for human factors in software design and joins the team with previous experience as a software developer at a cybersecurity firm. Anna graduated from McMaster University with a combined Honours in Arts & Science and Computer Science.
Daisie
Huang
Daisie Huang
Daisie brings both bioinformatics knowledge and software engineering expertise to their role on the CanDIG team. They have worked as a researcher in phylogenomics as well as a software developer for data repositories and API workflows. All inform their understanding of the challenges of creating a distributed system that works to facilitate research and discovery for clinical genomics researchers in Canada.
Francis
Nguyen
Francis Nguyen
Francis joined the team in May 2019 following the completion of his Master’s in Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. He is a web developer by trade and spends a majority of his time working on frontend work for the CARDS project.
Hajany
Jeyakumar
Hajany Jeyakumar
Upon completing her Masters in Health Informatics from UofT, Hajany developed a strong interest in streamlining clinical workflows and a passion to identify opportunities for improvement at the intersection of people, process and technology. As a project manager, she joined the DATA team to utilize her knowledge of clinical workflows and product development to advance projects across the team’s portfolio.
Haochi
Zhang
Haochi Zhang
Haochi joined the team as a software developer in 2019 to work on the PhenoPad project. Since then he has worked on various projects on processing medical documents and images using machine learning.
Jaryd
Hunter
Jaryd Hunter
Jaryd joined the DATA Team in the fall of 2021 as an application development specialist. His work is centred around applying ML solutions to healthcare problems. He holds a B.Sc in Computer Science from the University of Toronto, and a B.F.A. in theatrical production from York University. When he isn’t thinking about data sampling bias, he enjoys seeing local theatre.
Kelly
Bell
Kelly Bell
Kelly holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Science from the University of Guelph. She joined the DATA team in Spring 2021 as a software developer, eager to contribute to the development of software that promotes better health outcomes for patients. Before joining the DATA team, she was a full-stack developer at a security software company.
Martin
Pham
Martin Pham
Martin joined the DATA team in 2018. He spends his time focused on
full-stack development and web technology requirements gathering. Most of his work involves consolidating different data sources and compute onto a user-friendly interface respecting the constraints of various stakeholder-networks.
Michael
Lescisin
Michael Lescisin
Michael Lescisin holds a Master of Applied Science degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UOIT researching the use of machine learning for improving computer/network security and reliability. Currently, Michael implements application features, administers servers, and integrates academic research projects with production systems.
Nebiyou Petros
Nebiyou Petros
Nebiyou obtained a Masters of Public Health from Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia. Before joining our team, he worked as a surveillance officer for communicable diseases. Today his work involves understanding clinical datasets and mapping representations to different data models. He is interested in applying technology to connect siloed systems and streamline clinical workflows to improve the patient experience.
Peter Maksymowsky
Peter Maksymowsky
Peter is pursuing a B.A.Sc in Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto with a focus in software, machine learning, and engineering business. He is also a full-stack JavaScript developer with the DATA PRO team, helping build a number of clinical and research applications used across Canada.
Samantha Palmer
Samantha Palmer
Samantha holds a Master of Science in Health Policy & Law from the University of California. Her passion is rooted in disseminating innovative methods of care delivery to optimize the healthcare journey. Samantha joined the team to utilize her experience in stakeholder communications and development of health data policies across the team’s project portfolio.
Sasha
Andjic
Sasha Andjic
From a very young age, Sasha knew she had a passion for IT. She pursued a degree in electrical engineering, with a major in computer science. Her professional career includes time spent as a software developer, business analyst and a project manager. Today, she continues to share her passion with the DATA team as a Quality Assurance Analyst.
Sergiu
Dumitriu
Sergiu Dumitriu
Bio coming soon!
Shaikh
Rashid
Shaikh Rashid
Shaikh is a Senior Application Development Specialist at the University Health Network for the CanDIG project where he focuses on systems architecture, cloud/HPC, and variant analysis. Shaikh is also heavily involved in the application of GA4GH Cloud API standards and actively participating in discussions and working groups with international collaborators.
Sian
Brooks
Sian Brooks
Sian graduated from the University of Portsmouth, UK, with a BA Hons in Politics and International Relations. Since joining the team in November 2018 she continues to provide administrative support to Michael Brudno and the team at large.
Son
Chau
Son Chau
Son acquired his Master of Data Science from UBC in 2022. He is an Application Specialist for the CanDIG project with a focus on developing a new data model for the Marathon of Hope initiative and on Katsu, a service that stores clinical data from multiple hospitals across Canada to advance cancer research. Prior to joining the DATA team, he worked as a full-stack developer in Dallas using Django to design the API for web and mobile apps.
Veronika Koltunova
Veronika Koltunova
Veronika holds two Master’s degrees in Pure Math and Computer Science from the University of Waterloo. Currently, she acts as a Sr. Programmer/Analyst at the University Health Network as part of the DATA Team developing a complex of software tools for phenotypic and genotypic matchmaking of patients with rare genetic diseases.
Students
Arij Al Chawaf
Arij Al Chawaf
Arij joined the team in 2021 as a Master’s student in Health Systems Artificial intelligence with the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. She previously earned a PhD in neuroscience researching the role of a novel family of neuropeptides on emotionality circuits. Arij is also Executive Director, Strategic Initiative Development at the University of Toronto, overseeing the launch and growth of interdisciplinary research and training initiatives.
Fateme Sadat
Haghpanah
Fateme Sadat Haghpanah
Fateme completed her MSc at Columbia University where she focused primarily on brain imaging and MRI modalities. Fateme has since begun her Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Toronto under Michael Brudno’s supervision given her strong inclination for medical imaging and machine learning. Her aspirations include improving health care quality provision, beyond any one image modality.
Michael
Cooper
Michael Cooper
Michael is a Computer Science Ph.D. student at UofT, co-advised by Michael Brudno and Rahul Krishnan. His research is focused on leveraging machine learning to augment human intelligence in the practice of medicine, with the aim of improving the quality and accessibility of medical care. Prior to his doctoral studies, he earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University, and worked in Program Management at Microsoft.
Sophie
Liu
Sophie Liu
Sophie is a Computer Science Master’s student at UofT, working on bringing machine learning and mobile health together to help children and young adults manage chronic pain conditions. Her ultimate goal is to improve patient care and outcomes by helping to bring research results and innovation to the clinic.
Ian
Ruffolo
Ian Ruffolo
Ian is a MSc student at the University of Toronto, interested in using machine learning with mobile sensing to improve treatment and outcomes for patients. He is also interested in the intersection of ML in health and safety-critical system design. Prior to joining UofT, he was a research Software Engineer working with autonomous vehicles at Thales Canada.
Sergey
Protserov
Sergey Protserov
Sergey is a PhD Direct student at the University of Toronto, his bachelor’s degree is in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Lomonosov Moscow State University. He joined the team in Fall 2021 as a machine learning specialist to work on medical applications of AI. In his free time Sergey likes to read different ML- and math-related stuff on the Internet.
