More than 5,400 students crossed the stage at the University of Waterloo's 106th Convocation, taking place this week
WATERLOO, Ont. (Saturday, June 15, 2013) – More than 5,400 students crossed the stage at the University of Waterloo's 106th Convocation, taking place this week. There were 4,554 undergraduate degrees and 918 graduate degrees handed out at ceremonies taking place over five days.
Among the highlights:
This year saw the first graduating class from the Graduate Diploma in Social Innovation.
Kent Fisher won the Governor General's Gold Medal for Highest Standing in a Master's Program, and Adriano Senatore won the Governor General's Gold Medal for Highest Standing in a Doctoral Program. Both are from the Faculty of Science.
Amber Silver of Environment, Darin Bloemberg of Applied Health Sciences, Lisa Birke of Arts and Navid Bizmark of Engineering were recognized for Outstanding Achievement in Graduate Studies for a master's program.
Caitlin Mulcahy of Applied Health Sciences, Grayden Solmon of Arts, Madjid Soltani of Engineering, Mathieu Guay-Paquet of Engineering and Suzanne von der Porten of Environment received the Outstanding Achievement in Graduate Studies award for doctoral programs.
Alyson Woloshyn received the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences' Alumni Achievement Award posthumously. She lost her battle with brain cancer in 2012, but her legacy and leadership lives on in the Alyson Woloshyn Leadership Award, created this year. Ammar Bookwala is the first recipient.
Waterloo presented honorary doctorates to:
· Dr. Jean Chamberlain Froese, director of the International Women’s Health Program, and founder and executive director of Save the Mothers
· Ian Burton, one of the most influential scholars on issues related to hazard management and climate change
· Tom Jenkins, executive chairman of OpenText
· John L. McKnight, professor of human development and social policy, and co-director of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University
· John F. Gartner, a founding partner of Gartner Lee Ltd., the highly successful consulting firm with a history of leadership in environmental and engineering geology
· Miodrag Belosevic, a world-renowned parasitologist and fish immunologist, and a leader in developing water quality assessment assays
· Robert E. Bixby, the Noah Harding Professor Emeritus of Computational and Applied Mathematics at Rice University and research professor of management at Rice's Jones School of Management
· Hans U. Gerber, conceivably the top academic actuary in the world in the past 50 years
· Jacob Apkarian, an authority in the area of control systems and related fields such as mechatronics, haptics and robotics
Three faculty members received awards of excellence in graduate supervision: Kenneth R. Davidson (Mathematics), Wendy Mitchinson (Arts), Paul Parker (Environment).
Four faculty members received distinguished teacher awards: Kelly Anthony (Applied Health Sciences), Jeffrey Casello (Environment), Richard Ennis (Arts) and Duane Cronin (Engineering).
Douglas Robert Stinson became a university professor, a designation recognizing exceptional scholarly achievement and international pre-eminence.
