Resume

Name: Bashir Sadjad

E-mail: bssadjad[at]uwaterloo[dot]ca

Web-Site: http://sadjad.info (or http://sites.google.com/site/bsadjad)

Last major update: Oct. 2020

Professional Experiences

• • [Nov 2009 - NOW] Working as a Software Engineer in Google Inc. (the Waterloo office in Canada).

    • [2019-NOW] Leading Cloud Healthcare Next Billion Users (NBU) efforts from the engineering side.

      • In 2020 we have shifted our focus to EHR systems in the developing world, in particular OpenMRS. I am currently one of the co-leads for the Analytics Engine which is under active development.

      • Our 2019 NBU focus was around Tuberculosis in India, in particular developing ML models to predict TB hot spots. For this we collaborate with The Global Fund.

    • [2018] Member of the Cloud Genomics team.

      • Tools for processing and storage genomics big data, e.g., DNA variants storage, variant annotation, queries etc. Part of our work is open source (my GitHub account is bashir2).

    • [2012-2017] Member of the Conversion Optimizer team which is an automated bidding management system for advertisers. Summary of my contributions:

      • Design, implementation, and maintenance of computation pipelines and storage solutions for processing massive data-sets of user ad interactions. The published/non-secret technologies involved in this include: MapReduce, Flume (known as Dataflow externally), BigTable, Dremel (known as BigQuery externally), Spanner, GFS (similar to GCS and HDFS).

      • Improving Machine Learning Models (based on Logistic Regression and Poisson Regression) for Conversion Prediction (implementation of new features in the serving stack, running A/B experiments, analysis, etc.).

      • Applying a new novel Machine Learning method based on Bayesian inference and Gibbs sampling to the Conversion Prediction problem (implementing some of the required features in core Machine Learning serving systems used in Google).

    • [2010-2011] I worked on Javascript tooling (in particular Closure Compiler based support in IDEs). The result is an Eclipse and a Vim plugin that integrates the compiler and provides IDE features (auto-completion, etc.). This also involved modifying the Closure Compiler to support hot-swap builds which is already open-sourced.

    • In my first few months in Google, I have also worked on latency-measurement frameworks for mobile web-apps.

  • [May 2004 - Nov 2009] Working in Simulated Biomolecular Systems.

    • I created a new tool called eCrySP for prediction of crystal structures of small molecules as part of PhD research (see PhD thesis).

    • I contributed in the eHiTS docking software package and part of that contribution is included in my PhD thesis (see Publications).

    • I also had major contributions in LASSO and also minor contributions in other products like ARChem (see Publications).

  • [Sep 2002 - April 2004] Teaching and research assistant in University of Waterloo (during my master studies).

  • [Sep 2001 - Aug 2002] Working in the Network Security Center of Sharif University of Technology.

    • I mainly worked on an Intelligent Web Crawler that finds and classifies URLs.

Other Part-Time Roles

• • [Fall 2000 and Fall 2001] Member of the Scientific Committee of ACM ICPC Regional Contest, Tehran Site.

  • [Summer 2000] Coaching Iran national team in the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI 2000) in China. (one of the three coaches)

  • [1999-2001] Member of the National Informatics Olympiad Committee.

  • [1998-2001] Member of the National Informatics Olympiad Students Committee.

  • [1998-2001] Chief editor of The Way of Olympiad journal (informatics section).

Education

• • Jan 2006 - Dec 2009: Ph.D. in the Bioinformatics Group of the School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada.

    • My PhD thesis title was: Robust Search Methods for Rational Drug Design Applications (available here).

    • My PhD advisors were Zsold Zsoldos and Ming Li.

  • Sep. 2002 - Apr. 2004: M.Math. in computer science,School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, GPA = 92.4/100.

    • My Masters thesis title was: Geometric Optimization Problems over Sliding Windows and Similarity Search in Metric Spaces (available here).

    • My Masters advisor was Timothy Chan.

  • Sep. 1997 - Sep. 2001: Bc.S. in computer engineering,Department of Computer Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, GPA = 17.7/20.

  • Sep. 1993 - Sep. 1997: Diploma in mathematics-physics, Shahid Ezhei High School, Isfahan, Iran (NODET).

Awards and Honors

• • [2013] Platinum winner of the Google GDN and AdX Code Excellence Award for the refactoring work on our data processing pipeline (shared with three teammates).

  • [2004] Received the best student paper award in the 15th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC) for the paper with my Masters supervisor Timothy Chan.

  • [2002] Acceptance in the computer science PhD program of University of Waterloo, University of Toronto, and University of Maryland College Park with research and/or teaching assistant awards and the Institute for Computer Research (ICR) award from University of Waterloo.

  • [2002] Fifth place in the national graduate program entrance exam (software engineering).

  • [2001] Participating in the RoboCup 2001 with Sharif CE team and getting the Engineering Challenge Award for our machine vision paper (in Seattle, USA).

  • [2001] Ranked among the top 3%, in the ETS computer science subject exam (Fall 02).

  • [2000] Participating in the ACM Programming Contest World Final 2000 (in a remote site in Netherlands due to US visa issues).

  • [1999] Participating in the Sharif CE RoboCup team and the winner of the 3rd RoboCup Middle Size Champion (in Stockholm, Sweden).

  • [1999] First place in the ACM Asia regional contest (Tehran site), between 79 teams (with my friends S.V. Mirrokni and E. Chiniforoushan).

  • [1998] First place in the 1st Sharif computer dept. internal ACM contest (with Vahab Mirrokni and Ehsan Chiniforooshan), and participating in ACM regional contest.

  • [1998] Seventh place in the ACM regional contest (Dhaka site).

  • [1997] Bronze Medal in IOI'97 (South Africa, 1997).

  • [1997] Beginning the undergraduate studies in Computer Department of Sharif University of Technology without any entrance examination.

    • Remark: In Iran, each year, more than a million students take the global entrance examination for universities and about 10% are accepted. As a reward for being member of national olympiad team, I could enter any university I wanted, without taking this exam. I chose Sharif university of technology and its Computer Engineering Program.

  • [1996] Gold Medal in the 6th Iranian Informatics Olympiad.

  • [1995] Gold Medal in the 5th Iranian Informatics Olympiad (and entering Young Scholars Club).

  • [1990] Entering the NODET (National Organizations for Development of Exceptional Talents).

Research Experiences

• • [2004-2009] Working in SimBioSys Inc. on various drug discovery related problems (I joined the University of Waterloo Bioinformatics graduate program in 2006 as a part-time graduate student).

  • [2003] Working on computational geometry problems in data stream models (see Masters thesis).

  • [2003] Working on multimedia data indexing for fast retrieval using high dimensional computational geometry.

  • [2002] Automatic Web page classification using Latent Semantic Indexing like approaches (toward building a URL database for Network Security Center of Sharif University of Technology).

  • [2001] Member of Sharif CE RoboCup research group for the second time. Some results of this research experience are our papers and the Engineering Challenge Award that we got for our machine vision peper in RoboCup 2001 (Seattle, USA).

  • [2000] Member of the Behavioral Synthesis Group in Sharif Computer Engineering department.

  • [1999-2000] Member of a research group in graph theory in Sharif University of Technology with Saeed Akbari and Vahab Mirrokni (see Publications).

  • [1999] Member of Sharif CE RoboCup research group. Some results of this research experience are our papers and the first place in RoboCup99.

  • [1998] Member of a research group in graph theory in the Institute for Studies in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics (see Publications).

Teaching Experiences

I took a leave of absence from Google in 2015 and taught in University of Tehran for one semester:

• • Topics in Bioinformatics; grad course (see Courses page for slides and assignments).

  • Design of Algorithms (see Courses page for resources).

My teaching contributions while I was undergrad or grad student:

• • [2003] T.A. of CS466/666 - Algorithm Design and Analysis (Fall 2003) in University of Waterloo: Fall Term

  • [2003] T.A. of CS456/656 - Computer Networks (Fall 2003) in University of Waterloo: Fall Term

  • [2003] T.A. of CS448/648 - Introduction to Database Management (Spring 2003) in University of Waterloo: Spring Term

  • [2003] T.A. of CS251 - Computer Organization & Design (Winter 2003) in University of Waterloo: Winter Term

  • [2002] T.A. of CS133 - Developing Programming Principles in University of Waterloo: Fall Term

  • [2001] Advanced Algorithms T.A. in Sharif University: Fall Semester

  • [2001] T.A. of Linear Algebra as a part of Engineering Mathematics, in Sharif University: Fall Semester

  • [2001] Data Structures and Algorithms T.A. in Sharif University: Spring Semester

  • [2000] Compilers T.A. in Sharif University, Shahid Beheshty University, and Tehran University.

  • [2000] Foundations of CS T.A. in Sharif University: Spring Semester

  • [1999] Data Structures and Algorithms T.A. in Sharif University: Fall Semester

  • [1998] Pascal Programming T.A. in Sharif University, Spring and Fall Semesters

  • Teaching in the IOI team training classes, 1998-2001.

Familiar Programming Languages and Compilers

• • C and C++ compilers of gcc (The GNU Compiler Collection) - proficient

  • Java and Java development toolkit (openjdk in particular) - proficient

  • Python - proficient

  • Javascript (particularly Closure-based)

• Go

  • Other compilers/languages that I have used long time ago: VC++, DJGP, Borland C++, Delphi, Borland Pascal, etc.

Interests

• • Traditional Iranian music.

  • Reading books especially about history and religion.

  • Politics and its social/economic impact in developing world and Middle East in particular.

  • Researching topics related to my interests and writing about them in my Blog.

  • Sports especially football (a.k.a. soccer), volleyball, kayaking, and climbing.

Publications

[The Publications page has links to some of the papers.]

Molecular Structure Prediction

• • Bashir Sadjad, Zsolt Zsoldos, Toward a Robust Search Method for the Protein-Drug Docking Problem, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Vol. 8, pp. 1120-1133, 2011.

  • Darryl Reid, Bashir S. Sadjad, Zsolt Zsoldos, Aniko Simon LASSO -- ligand activity by surface similarity order: a new tool for ligand based virtual screening Journal of Computer-Aided Molecular Design, Vol. 22-6, pp. 479--487, 2008.

  • Z. Zsoldos, D. Reid, A. Simon, B. S. Sadjad, A. P. Johnson, eHiTS: A new fast, exhaustive flexible ligand docking system Journal of Molecular Graphics and Modeling Vol. 26-1, pp. 198--212, 2007.

  • Z. Zsoldos, D. Reid, A. Simon, B. S. Sadjad, A. P. Johnson, eHiTS: an innovative approach to the docking and scoring function problems Current Protein and Peptide Science, Vol. 7, pp 421--435, 2006.

Algorithms and Combinatorics

• • S. Akbari, V. S. Mirrokni, B. S. Sadjad, Some Relations between Choosability and Uniquely List Colorability, Journal of Combinatorial Theory Ser. B, Vol. 96 No. 4, pp 577--583, 2006.

  • T. M. Chan and B. S. Sadjad, Geometric Optimization Problems over Sliding Windows International Journal of Computational Geometry and Applications, 16:145-157, 2006 Vol. 16, pp 145--157, 2006.

  • T. M. Chan and B. S. Sadjad, Geometric Optimization Problems over Sliding Windows Proceedings 15th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 3341, pages 246-258, 2004.

  • B. S. Sadjad and M. Mirzazadeh, Analysis of Distance Based Indexing Methods for Similarity Search Proceedings of the 17th Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering Niagara Falls, Canada, 2004.

  • C. Quimper, P. van Beek, A. Lopez-Ortiz, A. Golynski, and S. B. Sadjad, An Efficient Bounds Consistency Algorithm for the Global Cardinality Constraint. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, Kinsale, Ireland, Sep. 2003.

  • S. Akbari, V. S. Mirrokni, B. S. Sadjad, Uniquely Vertex Colorable Graphs with Minimum Possible Edges, Journal of Combinatorial Theory Ser. B, Vol. 82 No. 2, pp 316--318, 2001.

  • Y. Ganjali, M. Ghebleh, H. Hajiabohasan, M. Mirzazadeh, B. S. Sadjad Uniquely 2-List Colorable Graphs, Discrete Applied Mathematics Vol. 119 Issue 3, pp 217-225, 2002.

  • S. B. Sadjad, M. Ghodsi, S. V. Mirrokni, Algorithmic Methods in Graph List-Coloring Proceedings of first conference on Graphs, Combinatorics, Computational Algorithms and Applications, Amir Kabir Univ. of Tech., Feb, 2001 (in persian).

Robotics and Image Processing

• • M. Jamzad, E. Chiniforushan, B. S. Sadjad, Object Detection in Changing Environment of Middle Size RoboCup and Some Applications, Proceedings of the IEEE Internatinal Symposium on Intelligent Control, pp 807-810, 2002.

  • M. Jamzad, B. S. Sadjad, V. S. Mirrokni, M. Kazemi, H. Chitsaz, A. Heydarnoori, M.T. Hajiaghai, E. Chiniforooshan, A Fast Vision System for Middle Size Robots in RoboCup, Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol. 2377, pp 71-80, 2002.

  • This paper was selected as the best Engineering Challenge in RoboCup 2001.

  • M. Jamzad, H. Chitsaz, A. Foroughnassirai, R. Ghorbani, M. Kazemi, V. S. Mirrokni, B. S. Sadjad Basic Requirements for a Teamwork in Middle Size RoboCup, Lecture Notes in Computer Science , Vol. 2377, pp 621-626, 2002.

  • M. Jamzad, A. Foroughnassiraei, E. Chiniforooshan, M. Kazemi, R. Ghorbani, H. Chitsaz, S. B. Sadjad, and F. Mobasser, Arvand: A Soccer Player Robot, AI Magazine, Vol. 21, No. 3, Fall 2000, pp 47-51.

  • M. Jamzad, A. Foroughnassiraei, E. Chiniforooshan, M. Kazemi, R. Ghorbani, M. Kazemi, H. Chitsaz, F. Mobasser, and S. B. Sadjad Middle Size Soccer Robots: Arvand, in M. Veloso, E. Pagello, and H. Kitano, eds. RoboCup 99: Robot Soccer World Cup III, Springer-Verlag, pp. 61-73, 2000.

  • M. Jamzad, A. Foroughnassiraei, E. Chiniforooshan, R. Ghorbani, M. Kazemi, H. Chitsaz, F. Mobasser, and S. B. Sadjad, Design and Construction of a Soccer Player Robot Arvand, in M. Veloso, E. Pagello, and H. Kitano, eds. RoboCup 99: Robot Soccer World Cup III, Springer-Verlag, pp. 745-749, 2000.

Thesis

• • Ph.D. Thesis: B. Sadjad, Robust Search Methods for Rational Drug Design Applications, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada.

  • Master's Thesis: B. S. Sadjad, Geometric Optimization Problems over Sliding Windows and Similarity Search in Metric Spaces, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada.

  • B. Sc. Thesis: S. V. Mirrokni, S. B. Sadjad, Design and Implementation of Image Processing and Software Control Algorithms for Middle Size Soccer Robot ARVAND, Sharif University of Technology, Theran, Iran (in persian).

Others

• • Some articles in The Way of Olympiad Iranian journal.