Riley Zurrin

Riley Zurrin

Data Engineer × Applied Physicist

I build production systems where standard playbooks fail.

Scientific Rigor

M.Sc. in Physics (UofT) & Honours B.Sc. Math/Physics (UBC) with a 4.0 GPA. I bring first-principles thinking to data architecture.

Technical Founder

Built and deployed Syntropic, a production-grade Data Warehouse UI (React/FastAPI/AWS/Terraform) currently serving live traffic for a SaaS client.

Research & Output

Published author (fMRI statistical modeling) and Kaggle Silver Medalist. I thrive in high-ambiguity, high-complexity environments.

// Technical Arsenal

Languages

PythonSQLJavaScriptHTML/CSS

Data & Cloud

AWSAzureDatabricksSnowflakedbtDagsterDuckDBTerraformDocker

Frameworks

FastAPIReactDjangoStreamlitCI/CD

// Experience

Data Engineer

Dakota Analytics
Apr 2024 — Present
  • Engineered a greenfield data platform using Dagster, DuckDB, and dbt to ETL billions of records
  • Led a technical team of 3 to design and implement custom data solutions for enterprise clients
  • Designed and built the company's first client-facing web application using Django on Azure
  • Architected end-to-end data warehouses using Databricks, Fabric, and SQL Server

Data Analyst / Researcher

BC Children's Hospital
Sep 2022 — Mar 2024
  • Applied advanced statistical modeling and data manipulation to fMRI neuroimaging data
  • Published two research papers with 40+ citations
Brain network visualization Hemodynamic response analysis

Data Analyst

Balloon Astrophysics Group — UofT
May 2022 — Sep 2022
  • Configured telemetry data and analytics from SuperBIT, a NASA balloon-borne telescope
  • Designed and built components to NASA standards at their facility in Texas

// Education

M.Sc. Physics

University of Toronto GPA: 3.96 2021 — 2022

Honours B.Sc. Mathematics & Physics

University of British Columbia GPA: 4.00 2016 — 2021

// Projects

🔴 LIVE

Syntropic

Production-grade Data Warehouse UI enabling business users to interact directly with data lakes. Serving live production traffic for a major SaaS platform.

FastAPIReactAWSTerraformDockerDatabricksSnowflake
  • 3-stage deployment with automated CI/CD
  • Enterprise RBAC, approvals, and audit trails
  • Monitored webhooks and data quality rules
🥈 KAGGLE SILVER

HealthStats

Web app for visualizing CDC health data. Full data pipeline from web scraping to interactive dashboards.

StreamlitSeleniumBeautifulSoup
1,400+ downloads

Clebsch-Gordan Calculator

Niche computational tool automating quantum mechanics algebra for physics researchers.

JavaScriptHTMLCSS

NHL Points Predictor

Predictive modeling for NHL player performance using mid-season statistics.

PythonMLStatistics

EEG Brain-Computer Interface

Signal processing for EEG acquisition system. Collaborated with UBC MINT on home automation via brain activity classification.

PythonSignal ProcessingML

// Publications

View on Google Scholar

// Beyond Code

Co-founded Compassion Services — raised $20k in scholarships, funded a well in Nepal Biked to Niagara Falls Book reviews on Goodreads Kiteboarding in Mexico