Executive Team

Executive Team

Dr. Lihang Ying (President)

Dr. Lihang Ying is the president of AlbertaAI. He has over 15 years of professional experience in software engineering, entrepreneurship, AI, and enterprise architecture in China and Canada. He works at the City of Edmonton as an architect in Smart City and AI & ML. He is also a mentor in the Multimedia Research Centre at the University of Alberta.

Mehwish Abbasi (VP Communication & Membership)

Mehwish Abbasi is a Computer Instructor at Action for Healthy Communities. She joined Alberta AI as a board member and VP of Communication and Membership in 2020. She has a Masters in Computer Science from McMaster University, ON and a Bachelors in Mathematics from the University of Karachi, Pakistan. She was awarded the President of Pakistan Award for Academic Excellence. She has vast experience of teaching at the university/ college level. Currently, she is pursuing MicroMasters in Data Science from the University of California, San Diego.

You can follow her on https://twitter.com/MehwishAbbasi  or https://www.linkedin.com/in/mehwish-abbasi-0b326416/

Dr. Fangfang Ding (VP Events)

Fangfang Ding has received her Ph.D. degree in Engineering Management at the University of Alberta, MSc in Quality System Engineering and BS in Computer Science. Her research expertise focuses on reliability analysis and optimization, prognostics, condition monitoring, maintenance optimization and renewable energy systems, among which AI techniques are commonly explored and deployed. 

She is very active in the communities and volunteers at various activities. Currently, she also acts as the president of the Edmonton Hubei Association. 

Fangfang is very enthusiastic about promoting modern technology to the communities at each corner that she is able to reach out.

Dr. Yanyu Zhou (VP Partnership & External)

Yanyu earned her Ph. D in international education policy and leadership from the University of Maryland in the U.S.A and her master’s degree in culture and values in education from McGill University in Canada. She also got her graduate diploma in Ethics and her bachelor’s degree in political science in China. Currently, Yanyu is working for a charitable organization in Edmonton in charge of the Adult Literacy and Skills Development Program. Prior to this position, she was Associate Director for an Institute at Pace University in New York and the Principal for a Chinese School with a history of over 100 years, in Boston. In addition, she was a faculty member in two universities in China before arriving in Canada.

Dr. Zhou has a passion for working for communities. She is President of the Edmonton Chinese Writing Club as well as Vice President of Edmonton Intercultural Centre. As a scholar, Dr. Yanyu Zhou was an Associate in Research of Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University. She is the author of a book, numerous book chapters, peer-reviewed journal articles, and presentations in a broad range of fields.

Jade Miao (Treasurer and VP Finance)

Jade Miao volunteers as Treasurer at Alberta Artificial Intelligence Association, where Jade oversees the organization’s financial operations, including preparing treasurer’s report, financial analysis, and budgets.

Jade is a Chartered Professional Accountant, Certified General Accountant and a Senior Accountant at a full-service accounting firm in Edmonton. Jade graduates with a Bachelor of Commerce degree and is now completing her MBA degree at University of Alberta. 

Please email jade@albertaai.org or go to https://ca.linkedin.com/in/jade-yumeng-miao-cpa-cga-495bb857 to contact Jade.

Huiling Gong (VP Education)

Huiling Gong is the VP Education of AlbertaAI. She has her Master of Applied Science Degree from the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department of Dalhousie University. She is a Professional Engineer in Alberta, and has over ten years of professional experience in automation engineering, electrical engineering, avionics engineering, machine learning, AI and data science in Canada.

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