Fabrice Harel-Canada

Fabrice Harel-Canada

Computer Science PhD

University of California, Los Angeles

Biography

I am a computer science PhD student at UCLA where I am advised by Miryung Kim. I also work with Violet Peng in Peng’s Language Understanding and Synthesis (PLUS) Lab and Quanquan Gu in the Statistical Machine Learning Lab.

My research aims at developing new techniques for training, testing, and evaluating ML systems. Previously, this has entailed devising novel adversarial attacks, investigating test metrics like neuron coverage for deep learning models, and creating sibylvariant transformations to improve model generalization and robustness. My current projects span three distinct areas:

  • Developing fine-grained data lineage to support the creation of automated data augmentation policies and data exploration.
  • Producing reference-free evaluation metrics to quantify the diversity of natural language.
  • Statically analyzing android apps containing ML models to generate tests that expand post-inference coverage.

Education

  • PhD | Computer Science, 2024

    University of California, Los Angeles

  • MS | Computer Science, 2019

    University of California, Los Angeles

  • BS | Information Systems, 2012

    University of Florida

Experience

 
 
 
 
 

Teaching Assistant | Intro to Computer Science [CS 31]

UCLA

Sep 2023 – Present Los Angeles, California
  • Facilitated a robust understanding of C++ fundamentals for introductory computer science students, providing guidance on programming concepts, debugging techniques, and hands-on problem-solving support.
 
 
 
 
 

Teaching Assistant | Software Engineering [CS 130]

UCLA

Mar 2023 – Jun 2020 Los Angeles, California
  • Collaborated with a team of Google instructors to facilitate cutting-edge learning experiences and contributing to the development of students’ technical skills.
 
 
 
 
 

Teaching Assistant | Software Engineering [CS 130]

UCLA

Sep 2020 – Dec 2020 Los Angeles, California
  • Facilitated hands-on learning in software engineering by guiding 50+ undergraduates through coding exercises and debugging, enhancing their grasp of complex algorithms and object-oriented programming.
  • Guided teams in designing and executing bespoke capstone projects, including a plant identification app, equipping them with practical experience in full-stack development and collaborative design.
 
 
 
 
 

Research Assistant

UCLA

Jul 2020 – Oct 2020 Los Angeles, California
  • Conducting LDA topic modeling and sentence clause-level sentiment analysis using BERT transformers on millions of Amazon and Glassdoor product / employer reviews.
 
 
 
 
 

Graduate Student Researcher

UCLA

Jun 2019 – Present Los Angeles, California
  • Developing automated evaluation metrics for natural language generation systems - e.g. diversity, engagement
  • Designed a new class of sibylvariant data transformations, releasing an open source tool for the community Sibyl
  • Evaluating the reliability of testing metrics for deep learning
  • Developing extensions to adversarial attack algorithms
 
 
 
 
 

Reader | Database Systems [CS 143]

UCLA

Jan 2019 – Mar 2019 Los Angeles, California
  • Developed test cases for a Spark project in Scala, actively addressed student questions, and assisted students with project work
 
 
 
 
 

CEO

Axenzi Consultants

Oct 2018 – Dec 2022 Los Angeles, California
  • Helping clients to plan and implement technology projects - specs, devops, and app / database development
 
 
 
 
 

Project Manager + Developer Team Lead

Verox Tech

Jul 2015 – Sep 2018 Los Angeles, California
  • Designed and successfully launched a smarter insurance app by building, motivating, and guiding a team of 23

  • Contributed 100s of check-ins, primarily consisting of C# Web APIs and database tables, triggers, sprocs, and T-SQL scripts

  • Designed and implemented a 3-system legacy data migration

  • Responsible for producing, coordinating and reviewing nearly every aspect of the SDLC:

    • code reviews and code optimization
    • requirements and spec generation
    • database design + SSIS + SSRS
    • technical documentation
    • UI design standards
    • product design
    • server setup / config
    • build and deployment scripts
 
 
 
 
 

Business + Data Analyst

People’s Trust Insurance

Dec 2012 – Sep 2018 Deerfield Beach, Florida
  • Go-to data expert for executives to produce hundreds of reports and analyses for pivotal decision making at the executive level
  • Developed numerous front-end / back-end application features that were successfully deployed into production to automate tedious and time-intensive workflows
  • Performed continuous requirements gathering & demos with business stakeholders to support 60+ sprints of development for both applications and business intelligence teams, including the transition to a new policy and claim management system

Projects

Predicting Stock Prices with Pyro and GNNs

Learning company relations from stock price movements alone can be extremely profitable.

MODE: Automated Neural Network Debugging Replication Project

Open source implementation based on the original paper by Shiqing Ma et al. with a comparison of newly considered distance functions for selecting next training inputs.

Interests

Python

SQL

.NET

AI

Statistics

Maths

US Politics

Activism

Philosophy

Games

Veganism

Travel

Contact

  • 420 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095