---
title: "About me"
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---

## Hi, I'm Jacob. Nice to meet you!

::: {layout="[[1,1], [1,1]]"}
![After biking to Niagara Falls](files/go_train_bike.jpg)

![My wife and myself in Death Valley, about to be hit by a snowstorm](files/hiking.jpg)

![Climbing at the Niagara Glen](files/climbing.jpg)

![My wife and myself on our engagement shoot](files/engagement.jpg)
:::

I'm a data scientist at Capital One Canada.
Currently, I lead our acquisitions risk model team that builds the models that predict risk of default for incoming applications.
Previously, I worked on our central tooling team, building inner-source and open-source Python libraries to make it easier for data scientists to do their work.

Before I started at Capital One, I studied at the University of Waterloo (UW), where I graduated in 2019 with a bachelor of mathematics, with a major in statistics and a minor in economic theory.

## Edmonton via Montreal, Waterloo, Toronto and Ottawa

I am currently based in Edmonton, having followed my wife here for her medical residency. I have luckily had the chance to experience living in a handful of cities across Canada. While I'm originally from Montreal, the co-op program at UW allowed me live in a few cities during my studies:

-   Waterloo, while studying and working as a NSERC research assistant.
-   Ottawa, while working as a research intern at Statistics Canada.
-   Toronto, while working as a data scientist co-op at Capital One.

I appreciated getting the chance to live in each of these cities for an extended period of time, and I think it allowed me to get to know each place in a way that just visiting would not have.

I am actively involved in housing advocacy at [Grow Together Edmonton](https://www.growtogetheryeg.com/), where we work to break down the barriers that prevent housing from being built. When I was in Toronto, I was a core advocate with [More Neighbours Toronto](https://www.moreneighbours.ca).

In the rest of my time, I enjoy rock climbing, cycling and baking bread. A few times a year, I'll go on a reading binge, devouring multiple books in the span of a weekend. Sometimes, when I don't feel like it's just working more, I'll do a little data-related side project that is different from my work, so I don't feel like I'm working on my own spare time. That's mostly what you'll read in [my blog](/blog.qmd).
