Jason Zafirov, PhD
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Education
PhD, Anderson School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
2018 – 2023
Master's of Science, Applied Economics, Department of Applied Economics, HEC Montréal
2012 – 2015
Bachelor's of Commerce, Finance, John Molson School of Business, Concordia University
2008 – 2011
Diploma of College Studies, Computer Science, Dawson College
2005 – 2008
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Publications — Authorships
Private Market Portfolio Forecasting and Optimization Using Machine Learning, United States Patent and Trademark Office (Provisional Patent)

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Skills
PythonSQLSparkNNsGenAI / LLMsEnsemble TreesFinancial/Economic AnalysisRMCP/RAG AgentsLLMsAWSBacktesting/ForecastingQuantitative AnalysisRisk ManagementFactor Analysis
Professional Experience
Senior AI Quant, Family Office (AUM: $600M)
2025 – present | Dubai, United Arab Emirates
AI Lead, Integrated Data Intelligence Ltd (Startup)
2023 – 2025 | Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
  • •Startup success forecasting using AI algorithms, including gradient boosted trees, LLM, NLP methods (embeddings and text chunking) with RAG pipelines.
    • Data Scientist, EPAM (NYSE: EPAM, MktCap: $20B)
    2022 – 2023 | Remote
  • •Time series forecasting investor behavior using a variety of ML algorithms. Event categorization, article clustering and sentiment analysis through NLP.
    • Economist, Letko Brosseau (private fund, AUM: $27B)
    2014 – 2016 | Montreal, Canada
  • •Forecasting and modeling: emerging market economics, energy markets, corporate profits.
    • Intern — Quantitative Analysis, CDPQ - Québec Public Pension Plans (AUM: $286B)
    2013 | Montreal, Canada
  • •Built PCA autoregression tool to forecast inflation.
    • Intern — Macroeconomic Analysis, CDPQ - Québec Public Pension Plans (AUM: $286B)
    2013 | Montreal, Canada
  • •Forecasting and modeling: unemployment, gross domestic product, demographics, productivity.
    • Research Analyst — Capital Markets, Scotiabank
    2010 – 2011 | Montreal, Canada
  • •Data organization, interpretation & visualization.
    • Intern — Trading Floor, Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (AUM: $114B)
    2009 | Toronto, Canada
  • •Software development for trading floor operators.
    • Intern — Software Development, CEDIB
    2008 | Lyon, France
    Machine Learning Projects
    pandas-ai, Contributor

    Library that adds Generative AI capabilities to pandas.

    Publications — Research Assistance
    Minimum Wage and Individual Worker Productivity: Evidence from a Large US Retailer, Published, Journal of Political Economy
  • •Analysis of minimum wage changes on store and employee outcomes of large US retailer (~5,000 stores). Linking together HR data, performance, turnover, scheduling, payments, geography, revenues and web scraping variables.
    • Counterproductive Worker Behavior After a Pay Cut, Published, Journal of the European Economic Association
  • •Difference-in-difference regression modeling of how workers reacted to a pay cut in a sales call-center.
    • Awards
    UCLA Anderson doctoral fellowship, $140,000
    FRQSC - Provincial doctoral scholarship, $84,000
    Academic Excellence Award (2012 & 2013)

    Highest average of the Master's program.

    Academic Excellence Award (2007)

    Highest average of the Computer Science program.

    Professional Training
    S2DS, Europe’s largest data science training bootcamp
    2023 | London, United Kingdom
    Kenneth Woods Portfolio Management Program, John Molson School of Business, Concordia University
    2009 – 2012 | Montreal, Canada
    Teaching Assistance
    MGMT 439: Tools and Analysis for Business Strategy (introduction to data science), Graduate level (UCLA)
    MGMT 264A: Market Research (regression, dimensionality reduction and clustering), Graduate level (UCLA)
    MGMT 403: Financial Accounting, Undergraduate level (UCLA)
    ECO 680109: Applied Econometrics, Graduate level (HEC Montréal)
    ECO 600112A: Economic & Corporate Organization, Graduate level (HEC Montréal)
    ECO 380607: Introduction to Econometrics, Undergraduate level (HEC Montréal)
    Personal Tutor, Economics, Computer Science, Data Science.
    Machine Learning PhD Classes
    ENGR C247: Neural Networks & Deep Learning, UCLA Engineering Department, Grade: A
    BIOSTAT 273: Classification and Regression Trees, UCLA Biostatistics Department, Grade: A+
    COM SCI 263: Natural Language Processing, UCLA Computer Science Department, Grade: A
    STATS 232C: Cognitive Artificial Intelligence (Reinforcement Learning), UCLA Statistics Department, Grade: A+
    Languages
    English

    (Native)

    French

    (Fluent)