In this episode of the Benjamin D. Fedoruk Podcast, I had a wonderfully insightful conversation with Ab Thaivallapil. I'm currently working under the supervision of Ab at the STEM Fellowship Journal. Ab is currently a PhD Candidate at the University of Guelph, with expected completion in 2023. In 2013, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Biotechnology from Wilfred Laurier University. Following this, in 2017, he completed his Bachelor of Applied Science in Occupational Health and Safety from Ryerson University, and then went on to receive his Master of Science in Epidemiology in 2019 from the University of Guelph.

Ab has served as the Managing Editor of the STEM Fellowship Journal since January of 2019, and has a strong passion for the promotion of STEM research in youth (a goal shared by my podcast). I recall when I submitted an article to the STEM Fellowship Journal, I was greeted by immediate and in-depth comments by Ab, helping me to push my thinking.

This conversation took some interesting turns, but I won't complain. Great conversations like the one I had with Ab are few and far between, and should be cherished. They are the tools which propel human understandings of the universe and our place therein.

You can connect with Ab on LinkedIn using: https://www.linkedin.com/in/athaival/

As always, here is my contact information. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions, or would like to be a guest on the show.

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminfedoruk

Personal Website: https://www.benfedoruk.com/

In this episode of the Benjamin D. Fedoruk Podcast, I was so excited to get to catch up with a friend from high school -- Jaimi Plater. This episode centered around some of the political science-based research which Jaimi has been conducting as of late, pertaining to optimal ways to help those with disabilities. She discusses a more social scientific style of research, which constrasts well with my typical scientific style. I think this episode will prove useful for anyone interested in conducting studies which directly impact human beings, and the policies which they live under.

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Joseph Pold. I met Joe through some common work we’re currently doing at the Journal for Medical Internet Research, or JMIR.

Joe is the Head of Marketing Insights and Analysis at JMIR Publications, based out of Philadelphia. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Geology in 2016 from the University of Pittsburgh, and then began his career as an Editorial Intern at John Wiley and Sons. There, he worked for several years, eventually becoming the Editorial Program Coordinator.

He also worked for Springer Nature as an Associate Editor, and then began his position at JMIR this year.

Joe is very involved in the research community. A simple scroll through his LinkedIn posts showcases his passion.

Today, we will be discussing some of Joe’s research during the pursuit of his undergraduate degree, specifically pertaining to sewage pipe service density in relation to demographic factors in Pittsburgh. With this, I hope that Joe can discuss some of the narrow-scoped research that may be optimal for those interested in making their first try at a research endeavour.

You can connect with Joe on LinkedIn using:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-pold-7a6567a7/

As always, here is my contact information. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions, or would like to be a guest on the show.

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminfedoruk

Personal Website: https://www.benfedoruk.com/

I was thrilled to get the opportunity to speak today with Parmin Sedigh. This was an incredibly interesting conversation with a high school student who has done extensive research in the field of stem cells. As is apparent in our discussion, my knowledge of stem cells is extremely lacking. I most certainly learned quite a bit from Parmin.

Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Naida Tania. Naida is entering her final year of undergraduate study at Ontario Tech University, studying computer science with a data science specialization. She has acted as a teaching assistant for the two Programming Workshop courses, teaching C++, at the university, which is where I met her. She has also acted as a peer tutor throughout her university career, providing one-on-one academic support to students.

Naida has done internships at IBM, working as a software and backend developer. She is passionate about machine learning, backend development, and DevOps.

Naida has worked as an Undergraduate Student Research Fellow, under the supervision of Dr. Jeremy Bradbury. In this capacity, she has worked to study 24 novel machine learning features for binary and multinomial classification of attacks, and to engineer artificial datasets for simulating combined intrusion attacks on CAN Bus in autonomous vehicles. She has been on the President's List over all of her past 3 years at Ontario Tech, and has achieved numerous honours from her time in high school.

In this episode, however, Naida and I will be focusing on some of her research from high school. I hope that Naida's high school research endeavours will inspire any younger students listening to take the first step towards their first publication.

I have to apologize, as something went weird with my microphone in this episode. Hopefully you can still make out the conversation, and learn something from Naida.

Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Michael Lombardo. Michael acted as a teaching assistant for my Computer Architecture course, which is where I first met him. We had some interesting conversations throughout the semester. He will be teaching my Data Structures course next semester, as a sessional lecturer.

Michael received his Bachelors of Science in Computer Science, with a Data Science specialization, from Ontario Tech University in 2019, and has continued to receive his Masters of Science in Computer Science, also at Ontario Tech. He has specialized on the applications of computer vision in various fields, including bioinformatics.

Michael has been in research since 2017. Since 2018, he has been working under the supervision of Dr. Faisal Qureshi to develop video summarization tools using PyTorch and to conduct research on biological diagram comprehension.

Michael has been granted a plethora of honours throughout his research career, including three Ontario Tech University Undergraduate Student Research Fellowships, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Undergraduate Student Research Award, and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, to name a few.

I am thrilled to speak with Michael, to learn more about the fascinating field of computer vision. I hope you find this conversation as thought-provoking as I did.

All of Michael's research can be found on his personal website. The following link will take you directly to the publications section:

https://datlombardo.ca/publications.html

If you'd like to get in contact with Michael, here is his info:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-lombardo-78650a107/

Personal Website: https://datlombardo.ca

As always, here is my contact information. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions, or would like to be a guest on the show.

Email: [email protected]

Personal Website: https://www.benfedoruk.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminfedoruk

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Anish Verma. I first met Anish earlier this year; he was organizing the 2021 Undergraduate Big Data Challenge, through his role as the Chief Data Officer at STEM Fellowship. At STEM Fellowship, he leads the data science division, directing the organization's data analytics to improve internal operations, and he oversees the organization of the National Big Data Challenge program, empowering youth to use data science in an interdisciplinary setting. I know that my team and I felt highly motivated to continue our research as a result of our participation, and our mentorship from Anish.

Anish is also a Quantitative Analyst for 1QBit, where he works to solve financial problems through quantum computing. From 2016 to 2019, Anish served as the Executive Editor and Journal Manager of the Science Undergraduate Research Journal at Simon Fraser University.

He received his Bachelors of Science in Chemical Physics from Simon Fraser University in 2018, and continued to earn his Masters of Science in Theoretical Nuclear Physics from the University of Guelph a few months ago.

In all of our past conversations, Anish has consistently led open and fun conversations on notoriously difficult concepts, and I am happy to say that this episode follows a similar trend.

Below are links to the three papers references, written by Anish (and co-authors):

"A Comparison of Text Sentiment and Market Sentiment US Treasury 10-Year Note Futures and Changes to Cash in Circulation using Sentiment Analysis and the CME Market Sentiment Meter": https://anishrverma.github.io/assets/1QBit_NLP.pdf

"Quantum Monte Carlo Methods and Its Application to Fermi Liquid Theory": https://anishrverma.github.io/assets/Anish-Verma_Thesis.pdf

"Collective and Single-Particle Degrees of Freedom in Rotating Nuclei": https://anishrverma.github.io/assets/SFU_Delta.pdf

Here is Anish's Contact Information:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anishrverma/

Personal Website: https://anishrverma.github.io

As always, here is my contact information.

Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions, or would like to be a guest on the show.

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminfedoruk

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with a team of researchers with whom I've worked closely over the past few months. Together as a group of first- and second-year students, we participated in the 2021 Undergraduate Big Data Challenge hosted by the STEM Fellowship, where we won the first place honour, being awarded the JMIR Infodemic Innovation Award. We wrote a paper titled "The Plebeian Algorithm: A Democratic Approach to Censorship and Moderation" which is currently being published. We have also done some research into carbon pricing models and human trafficking, placing second in the #Challenge4ClimateAction by Convergence.Tech. The team consists of three of my close friends, two of whom could be here today:

Russell Frost completed his second year of software engineering at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, ON. In all of our many conversations, he consistently brings up deep questions, and is able to get to the abstract core of our brainstorm sessions.

Kai Fucile Ladouceur is a close personal friend of mine. I met Kai in our first year of high school, where he became strongly involved in the Sir Winston Churchill Collegiate and Vocational Institute Robotics Club, taking a leadership involvement in his final year of high school at Superior Collegiate and Vocational Institute. Kai took this passion and ran with it. He is currently entering his first year of mechanical engineering at Confederation College, also in Thunder Bay, ON.

Together, we have been able to function extremely well as a team, going by the pseudonym "Aurora Borealis". We met one another through the International Baccalaureate programme in Thunder Bay, through our high school. I know that I've personally learnt a lot from these friends, and hope everyone listening feels the same.

Below is a link to the pre-print of "The Plebeian Algorithm: A Democratic Approach to Censorship and Moderation". https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/3...

The following are contact information for both of our guests:

Kai Fucile Ladouceur's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kai-fucil...

Kai Fucile Ladouceur's Email: [email protected]

Russell Frost's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/russell-f...

Russell Frost's Email: [email protected]

As always, here is my contact information. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions, or would like to be a guest on the show.

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminf...