UBC

Laks V.S. Lakshmanan

Professor, Department of Computer Science, The University of British Columbia

Current

I'm always looking for great students and postdocs in Data Mining, Machine Learning, Data management, and NLP. 

PhD and PhD Track Students

Tawkat Islam Khondaker. Previous Degree: MSc, UBC; BSc, BUET, Bangladesh.

Yifei Li. Previous Degree: BSc, McGill. 

MSc Students

Himanshu Mishra. Previous Degree: B.Tech., IIT Kanpur.

Kanwal Mehreen. Previous Degree: Bachelors, NUST.

 Postdoc 

Abdellah El Mekki. Joint with Muhammad Al-Mageed.

Completed

 Postdocs 

  • Keke Huang. 9/2024 - 9/2025. Previous Degree: PhD, NUS, Singapore.  Current Employment: Tenure track faculty, School of Computer Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

  • Michael Simpson . 10/2018-2021. Prevous Degree: PhD, University of Victoria. 
    First Position: Senior Software Engineer, Cognito Health, Victoria, BC.  Current Employment: Fraud Analytics Data Scientist, Definity.

  • Ezequiel Smucler . 7/2017-6/2018, joint with Prof Ruben Zamar (Statistics, UBC). Previous Degree: PhD,  University of Buenos Aires.
    Current Position: Assistant Professor,          Universidad Torcuato Di Tella . 

  • Xin Huang . 2/2015-12/2015. Previous Degree: PhD, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. First and Current Position: Assistant Professor, Hong Kong Baptist University. 

  • Mohsen Jamali . 2012-2013. Previous degree: PhD, Simon Fraser. University. First Employment: Walmart Labs. Current Employment: LinkedIn.

  • Rui Chen . 2012-2013. Previous degree; PhD, Concordia University. First Employment: Hong Kong Baptist University. 

  • Smriti Bhagat . 2010-2011. Previous degree: PhD, Rutgers U. . First Employment: Technicolor . Current Employer: Facebook. 

  • Solmaz Kolahi . 2007-2010. Previous degrees: BSc, Sharif U. Of Tech. , Iran, MSc & PhD, U. of Toronto. Current Employment: Oracle Corp. 

  • ByungWon On. 2008-2009. Previous degree: PhD, Penn State. First Employment: Postdoc, Singapore Management University . Current Employment:  research assistant professor in  Data Science Lab ,  Advanced Institutes of Convergence Technology (AICT)  at  Seoul National University,   Korea. 

  • Ganesh Ramesh (joint with Raymond Ng) . 2003-2005. Previous degrees: PhD, Univ. at Albany, SUNY. First Employment: Amazon . After a dizzying sequence of positions in various companies through   LinkedIn , Yahoo!, Microsoft, Apple, etc.  Currently with: Mutanix.

  • Fangqing Dong (at Concordia). 1992-94. First Employment: Seville Corp.

    • Graduated Students

    Doctoral Students

    Rudra Ranerjee Saha. May 2026.  Previous Degree: BSc, BUET, Bangladesh.  Current Employment: Synth -- The Context Engine for Sports (AI-powered Sports Intelligence for die-hard fans).

    Dujian Ding. March 2025. Previous Degree: Dual Degree BSc, Zhejiang Univeristy and Simon Fraser University. 
    Current Position: Research Scientist, Meta, CA. 

    Ganesh Jawahar . (joint with Prof. Muhammad Abdul-Mageed (Linguistics and School of Information, UBC). April 2024. Previous Degree: MS, IIIT Hyderabad. 
    Current Position: Research Scientist, Google Deep Mind, Mountain View, CA. 

    Yuxi Feng. April 2024. Previous Degree: BSc, Tsinghua University. 
    Current Position: Machine Learning Engineer, TikTok, Vancouver.

    Prithu Banerjee . Previous Degree: MTech, IIT Guwahati.
    First Position: Senior Technical Staff Member (SD3), Oracle Labs, Vancouver.  Current Position: Senior Software Engineer, MineSense Technologies Ltd., Vancouver.

    Glenn Bevilacqua. Previous Degree. BSc, UBC. 
    Current Position: Senior Technical Staff Member (SD3), Oracle Labs, Vancouver. 

    Sharan Vaswani . December 2019. Previous degree: B. Tech. BITS, Pilani, India. Previous Positions: Postdoctoral Fellow,  Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute ; Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Alberta. Current Position: Assistant Professor, Simon Fraser University. 

    Pei Lee . December 2017. Previous degree: BSc, MSc, Renmin University , China. First Employment: LinkedIn. --> Didi Chuxing Technology Co.  --> Ali Baba (Senior Director). 

    Wei Lu .  February 2015. Previous degree: BSc, Dual degree from Zhejiang U. , China and Simon Fraser Univ. (Transferred from MSc, Jan. 2012.) First Employment: LinkedIn.

    Min Xie . February 2014. Previous degree: BSc, MSc, Renmin University , China. First Employment: Walmart Labs. Current Employment: Search & Discovery @ Coupang.

    Amit Goyal . February 2013. Previous degree: B.Tech ., IIT – Bombay. First Employment: Twitter. Current Employment: Research Scientist, Meta.

    Shaofeng Bu (joint with Raymond Ng). September 2010. Previous degrees: First Employment: Microsoft. 

    Hui (Wendy) Wang . December 2007. Previous degrees: BSc, Wuhan U., China, MSc, UBC. First Employment: Assistant Professor, Stevens Inst. of Tech. , NJ. Current Position: Professor, Stevens Inst. of Tech.

    Masters Students

    Dorna Dehghani. Jan 2026. Previous Degree: BSc, Sharif U. of Tech., Iran. 

    Xiang Zhang. Dec 2025. Previous Degree: BSc, University. of Alberta. 

    Md Tawkat Islam Khondaker. Dec. 2023. Precious Degree: BSc, BUET, Bangladesh. 

    Kanwal Swati. April 2024. Previous Degree: BTech, Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad. 

    Farnoosh Hashemi. July 2023. Previous Degree: BSc. Sharif U. of Tech., Iran. Current Position: PhD student, Cornell. 

    Gorisha Agrawal. July 2021. Previous Degree: BTech,  IIT (BHU) Varanasi. Current Position: Member of Technical Staff, Oracle. 

    Sarah Habashi Elhammadi. August 2020. Current Position: Software Engineer, Galvanize . 

    Alexandra Kim. August 2019. Previus Degree: BSc, ????, Uzbekiastan. Current Position: Amazon. 

    Ritika Jain. August 2017. Previous Degree:... First Position: Ericsson Communications. Current Position: Amazon. 

    Sampoorna Biswas. January 2017. Clir. Previous Degree: BSc. IIIT Delhi.

    Yidan Liu. April 2016. Previous degree: BSc. Beijing Institute of Technology. China. 

    Shanshan Chen. May 2015. Previous degree: BSc, Renmin University, China.  Current Employment: Google.

    Sharan Vaswani. May 2015. Previous degree: B. Tech. BITS, Pilani, India. 

    Vignesh Shankaranarayanan. April 2014. Previous degree: BE, Anna University, Chennai. 

    Naresh Kumar Kolluju . 2013. Previous degree: B.Tech ., IIT – Bombay . First Employment: WurdlTech. Current Employment: Amazon.

    Shailendra Agarwal. 2013. Previous degree: B.Tech ., IIT – Guwahati . First Employment: Amazon. 

    Xueyao (Sophia) Liang. Previous degree: BSc, Zhejiang U ., China. Current Employment: Director of Engineering, Meta.

    Tianyu Li. Previous degree: BSc, Zhejiang U. , China. Current Employment: Software Engineer, Google.

    Ali Moosavi (joint with Rachel Pottinger) . Previous degree: BSc, Sharif U. Of Tech. , Iran. First Employment: Software Contractor for SAP.

    Pooya Esfandiar . Previous degree: BSc, Sharif U. Of Tech. , Iran. First Employment:

    Roman Yarovoy . First Employment: MDA Corp.. Current Employment: Salesforce.

    Zeinab Abbassi . Previous degree: BSc, Sharif U. Of Tech. , Iran. First position: PhD Student. Columbia U. Current Position: AI startup coach and advisor.

    Ying Su. Previous degree: BSc, Tsinghua University , China. First Employment: Microsoft.

    Shuan Wang (joint with Rachel Pottinger ). June 2007. First Employment: Microsoft.

    Zheng (Jessica) Zhao. June 2005. First Employment: Amazon.

    Bertrand Low. June 2007. First Employment: Ericsson R & D.

    Terence Ho. June 2008. employed in Hong Kong.

    Elaine Chang. June 2005. First Employment: Microsoft.

    Ruth Zhang (Joint with Ruben Zamar , Dept. of Stat.). July 2004. First Employment: Statistics Canada.

    Zhimin Chen. January 2004. First Employment: Microsoft Research.

    Yan (Maryann) Zhao. December 2003. First employment: Moneris .

    Graduated from Concordia

    Doctoral Students

    Hasan M. Jamil , Graduated March 1996. First employment: Mississippi State University. Current employment: Associate Professor, Wayne State University .

    Iyer N. Subramanian Graduated April 1997. First employment: IBM Almaden Research Center Second employment: Tavant Technologies. Current employment: Facebook .

    Nematollaah Shiri Graduated August 1997. Current employment: Associate Professor, Concordia University .

    Master's Students

    Chi-Hang Yim . March 1991. First employment: DHL Courier, Hong Kong.

    Daniel A. Nonen . September 1993. First employment: CAE, Montreal.

    Heather J. Johnstone . July 1994. First empoyment : Nortel, Ottawa.

    Karima A. Ashraf . March 1996. First Employment: Nortel, Ottawa. Current Employment: GenBand .

    Andrews Alanoly . December 1997. First employment: Planmatics , Montreal.

    Ioana M. Ursu . NSERC Graduate Fellow, 1996-98. Intern, IBM Almaden Research Center, August 1998-January 1999. Graduated November 1999. First Employment: IBM Santa Teresa Lab, San Jose, CA.

    Frederic Gingras . J.W. McConnell Memorial Fellow, 1996-98. Visiting Student, AT&T Labs, Research, Florham Park, NJ, January-April 1998. Graduated December 1999. First Employment: Bell Canada.

    (Hong) Xiaohong Wang. Graduated May 2000.

    Graduated from IIT - Bombay (Masters).

    K. Satyanarayana Rao . January 2001.

    P. Sailaja . April 2001. First Employment: Sun Microsystems, Bangalore, India.