From White Oaks SS to Microsoft Research: Dasha Metropolitansky’s journey from Student Trustee to Researcher

From a young age, White Oaks Secondary School grad Dasha Metropolitansky seemed destined for law. At 13, she was selected for the Canadian National Debate Team. She represented Canada at three world championships and ultimately ranked as the second best individual debater in the world. She also achieved a rare perfect score in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program at White Oaks. She thought she would become a lawyer. However, fate had other plans.

The summer after graduating from high school, Dasha spent her time doing things she had always dreamed of trying: traveling to Japan, learning to play poker and completing books on her reading list. 

“One of the books I read was Moneyball by Michael Lewis. It made me think that if statistics could transform how people understood something as familiar as baseball, it could probably be applied to almost anything. Learning poker gave me a new appreciation for probability and made math feel not just useful but genuinely fun. Being in Japan – so far from anything familiar – put me in a mindset where trying new things outside of my comfort zone felt energizing.”

That fall, she went to Harvard University. She took a statistics class and immediately loved it: the ideas that had fascinated her over the summer now had a formal language and toolkit behind them. This interest soon expanded into computer science, where she discovered how to turn ideas into tangible solutions.

As Dasha learned more about statistics and computer science, the range of possible pathways felt both exciting and overwhelming. To help navigate this uncertainty, she talked with senior students and alumni about how they made similar decisions and what they might do differently in hindsight. While these conversations helped her narrow down a few promising directions, she needed more hands-on experiences to help guide her decision-making.

Dasha applied to many internships, facing some rejection before finally getting her first opportunity. She was hired as a research assistant at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she applied statistical methods learned in her classes to real data and helped answer important questions. 

That first job opened the door to a summer internship as a research assistant at Massachusetts General Hospital. From there, she continued exploring different applications of statistics and computer science through projects and internships. She also took classes in related subjects that interested her, such as sports analytics and game theory.

“By the fall of 2021, my senior year, I had several job offers: quantitative analysis at a crypto startup, data science at Meta, trading at D. E. Shaw, and an AI program at Microsoft. I had previously interned at Meta and D. E. Shaw, so I could have taken a path where I largely knew what to expect. Instead, I leaned into my curiosity and chose something completely new: Microsoft’s AI program. The chance to learn about AI felt too exciting to pass up.”

In the program, Dasha joined a new team every six months and tackled a new AI-related problem, requiring her to quickly learn unfamiliar domains, collaborate with different stakeholders and deliver impactful work under tight deadlines. Dasha especially loved the projects involving challenging, real-world problems where there wasn’t a clear path forward.

“I wanted to do more of that kind of work, so I joined Microsoft Research. So far, it’s been an immensely challenging but also deeply rewarding experience: I’ve invented new solutions, filed patents and written research papers that were accepted to top AI conferences. More than anything, I’ve learned that staying open to new paths can lead to opportunities I never would have imagined.”

Dasha credits her time as an HDSB Student Trustee for enhancing her initiative, leadership and teamwork skills.

One project she is especially proud of was introducing online voting for Student Trustee elections. The system allowed thousands of students to watch candidate speeches, digitally cast votes and receive results quickly. 

In addition, Dasha served as President of the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association, representing two million students in Ontario. In this role, she led the creation of a student platform for the 2018 provincial election, gathering and analyzing survey data from thousands of students across the province and developing policy recommendations. She later presented the platform at the provincial parliament, coordinated a media campaign, and met with representatives from all major political parties to advocate for the proposed changes. Ultimately, several political parties incorporated parts of the platform into their education policies, and some were also adopted by the Ontario Ministry of Education.

These experiences taught her how to take an idea, organize a team around it and bring it to life. These skills would later prove essential in her work in AI research.

Now working as a Research Data Scientist in Microsoft Research, Dasha emphasizes that understanding and using AI is a valuable skill for everyone. She encourages people to start small by using AI in areas they are already curious about, whether schoolwork or personal interests. 

“Think of AI as a tool that helps you get things done faster, be more creative and turn ideas into reality. These abilities are useful in every profession.”

However, she emphasizes that while AI is powerful, it still requires direction and judgment from the person using it. She also highlights the importance of developing what she calls a “high-agency mindset,” which is the ability to take initiative and learn without waiting for permission.

Her journey from an aspiring lawyer to an AI researcher shows that the most meaningful paths are not always the most predictable. By staying open to new opportunities and following her curiosity, Dasha built a career she never initially imagined, but one that continues to challenge and inspire her every day.