Certifications:
Oh, hello there! Welcome to my little place on the world-wide web! Make yourself at home. Have a cup of tea while you're here.
I am an educator, artist, community organizer, and hacker.
I have been working in the technology field for over 5 years, most recently employed in a DevOps / Site Reliability Engineering role,
and have made a foray into MLOps after some experiments with ChatGPT, in addition to playing with robots.
Previously, I was employed as a Quality Assurance Engineer, and moved quickly into a lead role in that domain, where I also managed releases and ran regular team meetings. I also have experience with customer support and have demonstrated excellent technical writing skills throughout my career.
I'm always looking for new things to learn, whether tools to improve my productivity at work, or side projects to expand in other areas.
I enjoy playing with the linux terminal and learning about application security and penetration testing. In the past few years I've participated in
MontreHack and NorthSec both as a learner and as a volunteer.
Badge-soldering and key-casting were among my favourite activities at NorthSec 2023. I'm now responsible for the NorthSec Code of Conduct.
I appreciate open source, backward-compatibility and sustainable design in hardware and software, as well as privacy-preserving technologies,
and make contributions to such projects when I can.
I take pleasure in combining multiple generations of technology (I aspire towards having a setup like that of Adam in Only Lovers Left Alive).
I've made a video game proof-of-concept through the Pixelles Game Incubator. My goal was to use the eight weeks of the Incubator to complete a teaser for a larger project, in which I hoped to incorporate elements of hardware and software hacking. The latest build is available here.
I have a strong teaching background as well, having worked as a teaching assistant for both Introductory Computer Science and Anthropology courses.
I have taught a course on basic computer skills to hard-of-hearing individuals. I have also taught English as a Second Language, and have significant experience as a tutor.
Courses I have tutored for have included high school math and science, test prep (SAT), and university-level courses on introductory programming, qualitative research methods, and statistics.
I have
an M.A. in Social and Cultural Anthropology from Concordia University in Montreal, and
a B.Sc. from McGill University (joint major in Computer Science and Biology).
Outside of tech work, I am currently Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Iranian Canadian Congress. Prior work I take pride in includes acting as president for the QPIRG Concordia board of directors,
hosting the Montreal chapter of #BecauseWeveRead, and volunteering as an active listener for the Center for Gender Advocacy.
