NAME & ITS ORIGIN

My full name is Yaroslav Vladimirovich Riabinin.

In the Russian culture, a person’s middle name (patronymic) is derived by taking the first name of their father (in my case, “Vladimir”), and adding the suffix “-ovich” if the person is male and “-ovna” if the person is female.

My first name is of pagan Slavic origin and roughly translates to “one who glorifies the sun”. It was also the name of a famous Russian tzar (king), who was nicknamed "Yaroslav the Wise" for his accomplishments during his reign.

BACKGROUND

I’m 23 years old and I was born in the city of Ufa, in the former U.S.S.R.

I moved to Riga, Latvia with my parents when I was young and spent a number of years there, before immigrating to Toronto in 1995.

I started learning English at a very early age – about 3 years old – so I had little trouble adjusting. I attended Yorkview Public School, in North York, for grades 3, 4, and 5. I went on to do grades 6 and 7 at Willowdale Middle School, but then moved farther up north to Richmond Hill, skipping grade 8 to go straight into high school at the Academy for Gifted Children – P.A.C.E. I did grades 9 and 10 there, before calling it quits.

I started over at Cardinal Carter Catholic High School, finishing my secondary school studies after completing grades 11 and 12 there, with honours.

UNIVERSITY

I began my undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto in 2003, initially specializing in Computer Science – Software Engineering. However, I didn’t find it interdisciplinary and “rewarding” enough, in the sense of providing a broad intellectual background, so I soon switched into Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence. Building killer robots, as some have described it.

My primary focus was on the philosophy of mind and the role of language in human thought. Since I had a solid grasp of computer science as well, I wanted to combinine that with my knowledge of linguistics and philosophy to pursue graduate studies in Artificial Intelligence (Computational Linguistics, or Natural Language Processing).

I graduated in 2007 and received an Honours Bachelor of Science degree, with distinction.

Then, in the Fall of 2007, I began pursuing a Master's degree in Computer Science at the University of Toronto. I completed this degree in January 2009.

In addition to taking courses, I conducted research on the topic of political opinion classification and wrote a thesis paper entitled "Computational Identification of Ideology in Text: A Study of Canadian Parliamentary Debates".

ATHLETICS

I play tennis. I started when I was young and continued to train in Canada - most notably at Mayfair West, but also at other clubs and with various coaches. I became a certified Instructor in 2001. I'm also the Assistant Coach for University of Toronto's Varsity Team. As a junior, I used to compete and had a ranking in Ontario, but it was far too time-consuming. Now, I teach tennis in the summer to stay active.

Most recently, I worked with Bill Maron and ran tennis camps for kids and teenagers in Aurora. I also gave private lessons in Richmond Hill.

I grew up on the Baltic Sea, so I love water. I used to swim competitively, but now I just splash around in the Caribbean.

I'm an amateur kendo master, and I have some experience with boxing and MMA (mixed martial arts).

TEACHING

In addition to being a tennis coach, I've taught academic material at the University of Toronto. I began as a Teaching Assistant for CSC108 (Introduction to Computer Programming) and CSC148 (Introduction to Computer Science), both administered by Prof. Paul Gries.

Then, in the Winter of 2009, I was the Course Instructor for APS101 (Computer Programming). This was a tremendous experience, as I was completely responsible for managing every aspect of the first-year course, which had an enrolment of over 40 students, who were all in the Industrial Engineering program. I was also in charge of 4 Teaching Assistants, who helped me out a lot with the marking and other routine tasks.