Vusal Babashov
Ottawa,ON
Summary
Seasoned Data Scientist with expertise in designing data-driven solutions for various business problems. My top skills include problem-solving, business acumen, and the ability to leverage artificial intelligence models to gain actionable insights. Previous experience highlights solutions that drive significant improvements in decision-making processes and business performance in the healthcare and retail sectors.
Overview
14
14
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Data Scientist
Canadian Tire Corporation
Toronto, Canada
02.2022 - Current
- Company Overview: Canadian Tire Corporation is a Canadian retail company that operates in the automotive, hardware, sports, leisure, and housewares sectors.
- Website: https://www.canadiantire.ca.
- Designed a minimum viable product (MVP) using machine learning to predict out-of-stock products appearing as in stock, using sales transaction and inventory data, with projections to increase annual revenue by $13 million, and significantly enhance customer satisfaction.
- Developed product recommendation systems using matrix factorization, shallow autoencoders, and two-tower architecture to improve the conversion rate, and serve up relevant weekly promo products to customers.
- Engineered ETL pipelines using large-scale transactions and inventory data with PySpark and SQL for business KPI reporting, and consumption by machine learning models.
- Developed a resource allocation model using mixed-integer programming to efficiently staff the stores undergoing changeover, based on multiple objectives and constraints. Once put into production, the tool is expected to yield $1 million in operational savings annually.
- Developed a proof-of-concept AI Assistant chatbot using the GPT-4 LLM and RAG to assist customers with product searches on the Canadian Tire website.
- Finetuned BERT and Flan-T5 LLM models using the LORA to classify the domain and subdomain of the data tables migrated to the cloud to help streamline the daily tasks of Data Stewards.
Research Assistant | Instructor
Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa
Ottawa, Canada
09.2015 - 01.2021
- Company Overview: The Telfer School of Management is a business school at the University of Ottawa, renowned for excellence in health systems research.
- Website: https://telfer.uottawa.ca.
- Devised a solution using simulation, deep learning, and linear programming to set optimal patient wait time targets for outpatient clinics. This led to a 60% reduction in total wait time and overtime costs at the rheumatology clinic. This innovative solution was published in the Financial Times, FT50 Journal.
- Developed an approximate dynamic programming model to obtain an efficient healthcare capacity allocation policy. This policy results in the reduction of the average daily costs of waiting and overtime by approximately 500% at the endocrinology clinic.
- Proposed an innovative drug formulary design framework, leveraging multi-criteria decision analysis to streamline decision-making for public and private drug plan providers.
Data Scientist (PhD Internship)
Bank of Canada
Ottawa, Canada
09.2019 - 06.2020
- Company Overview: The Bank of Canada is Canada's central bank, responsible for formulating monetary policy and issuing currency.
- Website: https://www.bankofcanada.ca.
- Formulated a time series forecasting model using supervised machine learning to forecast intermittent demand for banknotes by denomination and region.
- The proposed model demonstrated a 10%–15% improvement in forecasting accuracy compared to the seasonal naïve approach.
Quantitative Analyst (Health Economics)
Pivina Consulting Inc. | Health Quality Ontario
Toronto, Canada
09.2012 - 06.2014
- Company Overview: Pivina Consulting Inc. provides consulting services in health quality and analytics, working with various health organizations.
- Website: https://www.pivina.com.
- Developed HEOR models (e.g., cost-effectiveness and budget impact analysis) for pharmaceutical companies and the Ministry of Health to inform the reimbursement decisions of new drugs and medical technologies, estimating the cost burden to the payer.
Research Assistant
Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario
09.2010 - 05.2012
- Company Overview: The Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics specializes in the discovery and application of epidemiological and new health services research methods.
- Website: https://schulich.uwo.ca/epibio/.
- Developed a cost-effectiveness model for brentuximab vedotin (aka Adcetris), based on phase II clinical trial data and large administrative patient data from Ontario, playing a critical role in informing the pan-Canadian Oncology Drug Review's reimbursement recommendation decision.
Education
Ph.D. - Management (Health Systems Modelling)
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, ON01.2021
Master of Science - Epidemiology & Biostatistics
University of Western Ontario
London, ON06-2012
Master of Science - Industrial Engineering
University Of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA05.2010
Bachelor of Science - Industrial Engineering
Qafqaz University
Baku, Azerbaijan06-2007
Skills
- Python
- PySpark
- SQL
- Databricks
- Machine Learning
- Large Language Models (LLMs)
- Operations Research
- Time Series Forecasting
- Microsoft Azure
- MongoDB
- Langchain
- Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)
Certification
- OpenAI Prompt Engineering, RAG Hackathon, Microsoft Azure, 12/23
- Generative AI Fundamentals, Databricks Academy, 08/23
- CORS Diploma, Canadian Operational Research Society, 04/21
Timeline
Data Scientist
Canadian Tire Corporation
02.2022 - Current
Data Scientist (PhD Internship)
Bank of Canada
09.2019 - 06.2020
Research Assistant | Instructor
Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa
09.2015 - 01.2021
Quantitative Analyst (Health Economics)
Pivina Consulting Inc. | Health Quality Ontario
09.2012 - 06.2014
Research Assistant
Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of Western Ontario
09.2010 - 05.2012
Ph.D. - Management (Health Systems Modelling)
University of Ottawa
Master of Science - Epidemiology & Biostatistics
University of Western Ontario
Master of Science - Industrial Engineering
University Of Pittsburgh
Bachelor of Science - Industrial Engineering
Qafqaz University
Similar Profiles
SERRENA MCDONALDSERRENA MCDONALD
Associate Manager -Loyalty Products - Platform at Canadian Tire CorporationAssociate Manager -Loyalty Products - Platform at Canadian Tire Corporation
FENIL KAMDARFENIL KAMDAR
Lead Warehouse Associate at Canadian Tire CorporationLead Warehouse Associate at Canadian Tire Corporation
Joseph MacpheeJoseph Macphee
Supervisor at Canadian Tire CorporationSupervisor at Canadian Tire Corporation