The Team

The people behind it all.

Executive Team

These student leaders are committed to Mac AI’s vision.

Aishah Memon
Co-President
Daniel Duan
Co-President
Zareen Kabir
Vice-President Technical
Connor Usaty
Director of Education
Vraj Patel
Workshop Developer
Aidan Goodyer
Workshop Developer
Sarah Simionescu
Workshop Developer
Muhammad Ammar Amir
Workshop Developer
Muhammed Ali Zia
Director of Projects
Ethan Walsh
Project Lead
Aiden Robinson
Project Lead
Hala Zou'bi
Vice-President of Partnerships
Ermina Shadab
MacHacks Sponsor Director
Adam Al-Jabari
Internal Relations Coordinator
Sai Kurra
External Relations Coordinator
Isabelle Ragany
Vice-President of Marketing
Ibrahim Iftikhar
Director of Graphic Design (Social Media)
Sabeer Abbasi
Director of Marketing
Saahil Gupta
Director of Student Engagement

Advisory Board

The advisory board consists of industry professionals, researchers, executives, and others who seek to further the mission of Mac AI.

Jodie Lobana — Chair

Jodie has more than 20 years of professional experience in internal & external audit, governance, and enterprise risk management. She has served as Managing Director of Lobana Consulting Group Inc. since 2005, and has provided services to more than 50 national and multi-national organizations across North America. Since 2011, Jodie has taught at a number of prominent universities, including the University of Waterloo, York University, and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). Jodie presently sits on the boards of International Internal Audit Standards Board (IIASB) and OECM. She has previously served on the Boards of the University of Waterloo’s UWCISA Institute, the Institute of Internal Auditors Canada (IIAC), McMaster University’s IT Strategy Steering Committee and CPA Canada’s IMTAC Technology Advisory Committee. Jodie is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Business Administration at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University with focus on Governance of Artificial Intelligence. She holds accounting designations in both Canada (CPA, CA) and the United States (CPA). In addition, Jodie is a Certified Internal Auditor, Certified Information Systems Auditor and Project Management Professional. In 2013, Jodie received CPA Ontario’s prestigious “Award of Distinction,” recognizing her early impact on the industry through leadership and professional achievement.

Matthew Jordan

Matthew Jordan is a McMaster instructor, a science communicator, and a funk musician who studies the history and science of thought. He currently teaches Innovate 1Z03, a survey of the history philosophy, ethics, and policy of artificial intelligence, and Artsci 4HS3, an introduction to the history of science. A proud McMaster alumnus, Matthew graduated from the Arts & Science program in 2017, where he majored in mathematics, minored in physics, and taught a course as an undergraduate student. He then spent two years at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, earning two degrees: an MSc in Psychological Research, studying how moral language drives political polarization on Twitter, and an MSc in History of Science, researching the role of game-playing in AI in the 1940s to 1970s. At Oxford, he worked with the Center for the Governance of AI to explore what it means to be a “good” AI company. Outside of academia, Matthew is an audiobook aficionado, an improv comedian, a basketball fan, and an amateur chess player. He is currently producing a podcast on the history of nuclear weapons, inspired by Richard Rhodes’ book The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

Gayleen Gray

Gayleen Gray is Assistant Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at McMaster University. Gayleen has 20 years of experience in Higher Ed IT and oversees McMaster University’s information systems and services, including Information Security. She launched the McMaster IT Strategic Plan in 2019, provides leadership across all campus technology priorities and is responsible for the institution’s IT Governance processes. A truly collaborative leader, Gayleen works with the institutions’ leadership team and a network of diverse colleagues and IT personnel across the campus to ensure that McMaster’s research, teaching and learning initiatives are supported and enabled by campus systems and infrastructure. Throughout her career, Gayleen has built relationships and fostered engagements with Higher Education IT peers across Canada and in the US to further collective areas of interest. Gayleen is well-known for her knowledge, openness and authenticity. She is a frequent presenter and active participant at various professional forums such as Educause, CUCCIO and CANHEIT. Gayleen sits on the ORION Board of Directors and the Hospice Wellington Board of Directors.

Sebastian Maurice

Sebastian Maurice is the Founder and CTO at OTICS Advanced Analytics, a Canadian company based in Toronto, with office in Calgary.  He has over 25 years industry experience in AI/ML/Data Science.  He has led global AI and Data Science teams at Gartner, Accenture, Hitachi and SAS. He has a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Calgary and his thesis focused on Multi-Agent systems and Modeling Cooperative Behaviours Among Software Agents. He has 8 Publications in Peer-reviewed Journals, and has a Canadian Patent in applying Machine Learning to Optimize Oil Production (Patent #: 2864265 ). He is also the creator of MAADS (Multi-Agent Accelerator for Data Science, an AutoML technology) Products including Python Library (https://pypi.org/project/maads/), IPC, VIPER, HPDE (see www.otics.ca). He is also an Instructor in Data Science at the University of Toronto. In his off-time Sebastian loves long-distance running, coding, blogging and spending time with his wife and daughter.

John Weigelt

John Weigelt leads Microsoft Canada’s strategic policy and technology efforts. Mr. Weigelt helps individuals and organizations across Canada innovate with technology while avoiding the unintended consequences that might arise.  He leads Canadian outreach for a variety of technology policies including: Economic Development, Privacy, Security, Government 3.0, Accessibility, Ai ethics and Interoperability. He also leads Microsoft Canada’s Responsible AI program and was one of the authors of Canada’s National Standard on Ethics in the Design and Use of Automated Decision Systems.

Andres Rojas

Andres is the Director of Applied AI Projects at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, where he is accelerating the adoption of AI in some of Canada's most influential companies. Some key areas of his work include Trustworthy AI and its Governance and translating AI quirks to the corporate environment. Andres has over 15 years of experience in the financial industry spanning more than 16 countries, designing and implementing data-enabled solutions to achieve greater operational performance, stronger risk management and enhanced business responsiveness. He is an Industrial Engineer from the University of Chile, holds an MBA from Manchester University, a certified Project Management Professional and was part of the first cohort to receive a certificate in AI from the University of Toronto. Andres multiple interests include innovation in education and experiential learning, dabbling in application development and home automation, reading and learning across a vast range of genres and topics, and spending time with his family and dog.

Jacob Gordon-Zarankin

Jacob is a McMaster University alumni, graduating in 2021 with a degree in Software Engineering. He is currently a machine learning software engineer at Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, focused on machine learning operations (MLOps) and building robust AI models for the cloud. He has previously worked for IBM Watson. Jacob is passionate about increasing accessibility to AI educational resources, interdisciplinary community collaborations, and developing engineering practices in the field. He joined Mac AI in 2018 as Project Manager, and served as Co-president in the 2019-2020 academic year.

Alexander Bozzo

Alexander is a McMaster University, student-athlete currently working at BDC Capital in the Growth Venture Co-investment Fund. He is a Co-founder and past Co-president of Mac AI who helped grow the society to +1400 members and is also the Founder of Mac AI Ventures, an affiliate organization of Mac AI. In addition, Alexander serves as an Advisory Board Member to The Drive Foundation, a Canadian charity dedicated to helping people who are recovering from and currently battling with mental illness and addiction.

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General Members

Our broader team consists of our general members:
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