People

(alum) Zhibin (Allen) Zheng

Topic Modelling Researcher

Allen has a Masters Degree in Geography from McGill University. In his research, Allen applied machine learning to analyze applications from over 200 communities in Canada to the Canadian federal government’s Smart City Challenge grant. Unlike other research, he found topics related to health and language preservation. The design of the granting program expanded the definitions of ‘smart’, with innovations in traditional technologies, and ‘city’, including concerns of rural, remote, and Indigenous communities. He also created a deployment model of machine learning that recognized the limits to automation promised by these methods and he detailed the 11 steps in which the human-as-researcher was involved. He is currently employed by JD.com, Inc. as an algorithm engineer, where he provides smart city technological solutions to governments in Asia.

(alum) Anna Abramova

Research Intern & Undergraduate Student, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University

Anna is an undergraduate student at McGill University studying Finance and Business Analytics. She is interested in urban development, quantitative methods in finance and social sciences, as well as technological solutions and tech policy. Having worked in financial risk management at PwC, Anna has helped produce Regulatory Radar publications by summarizing changes and updates to financial services legislation, which further reinforced her interest in policy development. Through the integrated Student Management Fellowship program, she explores how concepts from business ethics and social responsibility influence government-deployed AI. Anna hopes that her work could contribute to the discussion on responsible AI and mitigation of ethical risks in the use of AI technology through policy and guidelines development.

(alum) Sam Lumley

Researcher

Sam is interested in technologies that promise to deliver social and environmental impacts. He is now working for Statistics Canada. Through his Master’s research at McGill University, Sam explored the use of interactive visualization to share climate change information on the web. Previously, he was the Digital Manager of the Geothink partnership grant, showcasing research on civic geospatial technology through articles, webinars, and podcasts, as well as Project Manager of an Environment Canada research grant. Sam examined civic engagement through AI while working with AI for the Rest of Us.

Allison Cohen

Allison is the Applied AI Lead at Mila. In this role, Allison works closely with AI researchers, social science experts and external partners to professionalize and deploy socially beneficial AI projects. She also is Co-Lead of the AI for Drug Discovery Committee for the Global Partnership on AI, building policy recommendations for an AI-enabled R&D process that produces drugs that are equitably distributed and better aligned with healthcare outcomes. Her portfolio of work includes: a misogyny detection and correction tool; an application that can identify online activity that is suspected of containing human trafficking victims; and an agricultural analytics tool to support sustainable practices among smallholder farmers in Rwanda.

Bianca Wylie

Bianca is an Open Government Advocate with a dual background in technology and public engagement. She is the Co-Founder of Digital Public, a Co-Founder of Tech Reset Canada and is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. She worked for several years in the tech sector in operations, infrastructure, corporate training, and product management, most recently at Thomson Reuters. As a facilitator at Swerhun Inc., she designed, delivered and supported public consultation processes for various governments and government agencies. In 2014, Bianca founded the Open Data Institute Toronto. She is a columnist, guest lecturer, and speaker on open government and public sector technology policy and a member of the Toronto Public Library’s Innovation Council.

Derek Ruths

Derek is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at McGill University. He joined the faculty in 2009 after completing his PhD in Computer Science at Rice University. His ongoing work considers the problem of characterizing and predicting the large-scale dynamics of human behaviour in online social platforms. His work involves active collaborations with colleagues in the social sciences, humanities, and in industry. He has published in top-tier journals and conferences including Science, EMNLP, ICWSM, and PLoS Computational Biology. His research is funded by a wide array of organizations including NSERC, SSHRC, tech companies, and the US National Science Foundation – underscoring the broad, interdisciplinary nature of his work.

Drew Bush

Drew is the Executive Director of Mount Washington Observatory, a nonprofit institution with a mission to advance understanding of the natural systems that create Earth’s weather and climate. He has more than a decade of experience teaching students about Earth, ocean and climate science and evaluating the impact of technology-based inquiry, citizen science, and service-based curricula. In the past he has developed and evaluated technology-based science curricula for high school (e.g., at the American Museum of Natural History, McGill University’s Be A Climate Modeler For A Week Summer Camp), Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel (e.g., at John Abbott and Dawson Colleges) and undergraduate (e.g., at McGill University, New York University, Cornell University/University of New Hampshire’s Shoals Marine Laboratory) students.

Merlin Chatwin

Merlin is the Executive Director of Open North, a nonprofit organization specialized in data governance, open smart cities, and applied research. He received his PhD from the University of Western Ontario in the Geography Department. His research area is urban policy and local governance with a specific focus on inclusive civic participation in distinct geographies. He has over 10 years of domestic and international experience focusing on civic engagement, policy development and local government reform. Merlin has significant experience in developing strategic alliances in governance, education and food security sectors.

Mich (Michèle) Spieler

Based in Montréal/ Tiohtià:ke/ Mooniyaang, Mich (Michèle) works as a Community Technology Co-coordinator at COCo (Centre for Community Organizations), a nonprofit whose mission is to help build a more socially just world by supporting the health and well-being of community organizations in Québec. A political scientist by training, they’ve done work on gender equity in universities through analysis of employment data and research on reconciling academic career and raising children. They have been involved in several feminist media projects and bring a background of ICT trainer, web developer and Executive Director of a Quebec community group to their current position, as as well as a passion for the question how technology contributes to or can help eliminate oppression.

Nasma Ahmed

Nasma is a technologist and community organizer that works within the intersections of social justice, technology, and policy. She is the Director of the Digital Justice Lab, which is based in Toronto. The Lab’s mission is to build alternative digital futures in Canada by working alongside technologists, community activists, and policymakers to shape a better understanding of technology and its impact on communities across the country.

Pamela Robinson

Pamela (MCIP, RPP) is a Professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Toronto Metropolitan University. She is also a registered professional planner. As part of the geothink.ca, external link research team, Pamela’s research and practice focus on urban sustainability issues with a particular focus on cities and climate change and the use of open data and civic technology to support open government transformations. She serves on the board of directors of the Metcalf Foundation and has participated in four Metrolinx Community Advisory Committees. Pamela is an editor of Urban Sustainability: Reconnecting Space and Place (University of Toronto Press, 2013), Teaching as Scholarship: Preparing Students for Professional Practice in Community Services (WLU Press, 2016) and is a columnist for Spacing magazine.

Peter Johnson

Peter is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management (GEM) at the University of Waterloo. His research seeks to understand how governments, citizens, and private companies share information through geospatial technology, including open data, the geoweb, social media, mobile devices, and the process of crowdsourcing.

Rob Davidson

Rob is the Director, Data Science at the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC), an independent, non-profit think tank. Rob is a 25-year seasoned veteran of the software industry and has excelled in senior roles, ranging from Chief Technologist, Vice-President of Product Management to Director of Marketing & Communications. Rob has spoken at national and international events on emerging technologies, AI, and open data and government. Rob is a passionate open data advocate, promoting the use of open data for social good and business creation. He is a current member of and former co-chair of Canada’s Open Government Multi-Stakeholder Forum. 

Shannon Mattern

Shannon is the incoming Penn Presidential Compact Professor of Art History and Media Studies at the University of Pennsylvania (January 2023). Previously, she was the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Anthropology at Eugene Lang College and Director of the minor in Anthropology + Design in the New School for Social Research. Her writing and teaching focus on archives, libraries, and other media spaces; media infrastructures; spatial epistemologies; and mediated sensation and exhibition. She is the author of The New Downtown Library: Designing with Communities, Deep Mapping the Media City, and Code and Clay, Data and Dirt: Five Thousand Years of Urban Media, all published by University of Minnesota Press. She also contributes a regular long-form column about urban data and mediated infrastructures to Places, a journal focusing on architecture, urbanism, and landscape, and she collaborates on public design and interactive projects and exhibitions.

(alum) Alexandra (Sasha) Luccioni

Sasha is a Research Scientist at HuggingFace, where she works on the ethical and societal impacts of Machine Learning models and datasets. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher at Mila, where she led various climate change-related initiatives, including projects that aim to estimate the environmental impact of Machine Learning and to analyze financial disclosures from a climate standpoint. Sasha’s work sits at the intersection of AI and the environment; her goal is to find ways to maximize the positive impacts of AI while minimizing the negative ones, be it from a research or application perspective.

(alum) Jean-Noé Landry

Jean-Noé is a Social Entrepreneur and 2021-2022 Obama Scholar. Previously, he was the Executive Director of Open North, a nonprofit organization specialized in data governance, open smart cities, and applied research. With more than 20 years of international democratic support experience and a leadership role in the global open data community, Jean-Noé is part of the directing committee of the International observatory on the social impact of AI (OBVIA), a Fellow at the Center for Law, Technology and Society at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, and on the national jury of the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Housing Supply Challenge.