Nadia Markova

Doctoral Student

Email: [email protected]

About me:

Hi, I’m Nadia Markova, a PhD student at INSAIT – starting in January 2026, supervised by Prof. David Basin.

My research interests lie at the intersection of foundations of AI, human cognition, and formal reasoning, with a particular focus on formal guarantees in machine learning systems and provable security in the regulatory field. I am drawn to problems that bridge theoretical methods (logic, mathematics, and formal methods) with cognitively informed models of learning, reasoning, and decision-making.

Prior to pursuing a PhD, I worked in both the private and public sectors, including as a Product Manager at AI ed-tech startup Korbit Technologies, and as a Technical Lead on large-scale AI systems for regulatory analysis within the Government of Canada.

Education:

  • Master of Cognitive Science (Carleton University, Canada, 2019-2021)
  • Honours B.Sc. in Physics and Mathematics – Quantum Mechanics Stream (University of Toronto, 2014-2018)

Publications:

  • Evaluating the Utility of Notional Machine Representations to Help Novices Learn to Code Trace, ICER 2023: Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research, Volume 1 p. 314-328 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3568813.3600119, 20% acceptance rate

Relevant experience:

  • IT Technical Team Lead – Transport Canada, Government of Canada (2023-2025)
  • Product Manager – Korbit Technologies, Canada (2022-2023)
  • Teaching Assistant, Computational Methods – Carleton University (2020-2021)
  • Teaching Assistant, Undergraduate Seminar: Thinking and Knowing – Carleton University (2019-2020)
  • Research Assistant, Educational Technologies Lab – Carleton University (2019-2021)
  • Data Analyst Intern, Digital Historical Textbook Collection – United Nations, International Bureau of Education, Geneva, Switzerland (2014)

Awards:

  • Cognitive Science Graduate Scholarship – awarded annually to an outstanding graduate student in Cognitive Science (2020-2021)
  • Certificate of Academic Excellence – International School of Geneva (2013)
  • Gold Medal, Winning Essay (United Nations Peace Contest)