Keynote speakers

Dr. Sanjeena Dang (Subedi) is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Data Science and Analytics at the School of Mathematics and Statistics at Carleton University. She is also an Associated Graduate Faculty for the Bioinformatics Program at the University of Guelph. Dr. Dang has developed an innovative interdisciplinary research program that has coalesced around developing highly efficient and scalable statistical models for clustering various types of biological datasets. The impact of her research has been recognized with prominent honours, including a Canada Research Chair and the 2019 Chikio Hayashi Award (an international award given by the International Federation of Classification Societies to promising early career researchers in the area of classification in recognition of their research excellence). Dr. Dang has co-authored over 43 publications and has supervised 36 graduate and undergraduate students. She has also taken active leadership roles in both the statistics and bioinformatics community. Her notable roles include the President-elect of the Classification Society (2024-2025), President of the Business and Industrial section of the Statistical Society of Canada (2020-2021), member of the Board of Directors of the Classification Society, treasurer for the International Federation of Classification society, Associate Editor for the journals Lifestyle Genomics and Journal of Classification, guest editor for the Fields Institute Communications Series on Data Science and Optimization, and the chair of the organizing committee for CANSSI's Distinguished Lecture Series in Statistical Sciences.

Dr. Thais Bardini Idalino is an assistant professor in computer science at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Brazil. She specializes in the intersection of Combinatorics and Cryptography, focusing on developing new combinatorial objects for cryptographic applications. Thais completed her Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Ottawa and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Simon Fraser University. 

Dr. Steve Desjardins (PhD in Applied Mathematics, University of Ottawa 2002) came to Applied Mathematics through Chemistry and Physics, working in Partial Differential Equations and Numerical Analysis. 

But since his PhD, his research has been more pedagogical in nature, specifically in improving the delivery of Calculus and Differential Equations courses.

He has also happily become the Department's main History of Mathematics professor. And, for the last 8 years, he has been the Assistant Chair of the Department, responsible for the Undergraduate Programs and Students.