More than 5,800 students crossed the stage at the University of Waterloo's 108th convocation, taking place this week.
More than 5,800 students crossed the stage at the University of Waterloo's 108th convocation, taking place this week. There were 4,878 undergraduate degrees and 974 graduate degrees handed out at ceremonies taking place over five days, ending today.
"More than 165,000 people have graduated from the University of Waterloo to date," said Feridun Hamdullahpur, president and vice-chancellor of Waterloo. "I am delighted to welcome to the growing family of Waterloo alumni those who received their degrees this week, and offer them and the recipients of many awards and honours my congratulations. Our work as a world-class university will continue on their behalf."
Among the highlights of Waterloo's spring convocation:
Waterloo presented honorary doctorates to:
· Chris Hadfield, the first Canadian to command the International Space Station.
· Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer, director-general at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
· Professor Vukan Vuchic, who has made several groundbreaking contributions to the field of urban transportation.
· Ronald Lang who has devoted much of his professional life to the labour movement and to public service, including his long involvement with the Canadian Labour Congress.
· Professor Michael W. Higgins, the author of 14 books, and former president of St. Jerome's University at the University of Waterloo.
· Dr. Malcolm Moore, the program head of medical oncology and hematology at Princess Margaret Hospital, and director of the McCain Centre for Pancreatic Cancer.
· Professor Dan-Virgil Voiculescu, who has published more than 100 research papers and is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships.
· Professor Ronald Rivest, one of the world's pre-eminent cryptographers, and the recipient of the prestigious A.M. Turing Award.
· Professor Bruce Rittmann, considered a world leader and visionary in the field of environmental biotechnology, a successful innovator and distinguished academic.
· Professor Ralph Keeney, professor emeritus of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Southern California and research professor emeritus at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
Professors Jane Buyers (Arts), Roy Cameron (Applied Health Sciences), David John (Arts) and Ted McGee (Arts) became distinguished professors emeriti.
Three students were awarded the Governor General's Gold Medal: Kevin Alexander Eng (Science), Luke Robert Schaeffer (Mathematics) and Ian Curtis Smith (Applied Health Sciences). Akash Kapoor (Arts) and Jeremy Brandon Roman (Mathematics) won the Governor General's Silver Medal.
Four faculty members received distinguished teacher awards: Kashif Memon (Science), Anindya Sen (Arts), Levent Tunçel (Mathematics) and Christina Vester (Arts).
Seven students received awards for outstanding achievement in graduate studies: Katelyn Fraser (Applied Health Sciences), Zahra Jaffer (Environment), Joshua Michael Lloyd King (Environment), Varadharaja Jayakumar (Science), Jonathan Lavoie (Science), Marcel Kenji de Carli Silva (Mathematics), Sonja Vangjeli (Engineering) and Shiva Abbaszadeh (Engineering).
Six students won alumni gold medals, for academic achievement: Stephanie Wing-man Chu (Arts), Stanley Adam Craig (Engineering), Kevin Alexander Eng (Science), Dilys Huang (Environment), Pravin Varadarajan (Mathematics) and Maja Vermeulen (Applied Health Sciences).
Ken Lavigne, former registrar of Waterloo, and Sharon Adams, long-time staff member and former member of Waterloo's Board of Governors, became honorary members of the University.
Professors Jean Andrey (Environment), Jennifer Clapp (Environment) and Stuart McGill (Applied Health Sciences) were honoured with awards for excellence in graduate supervision.
In just half a century, the University of Waterloo, located at the heart of Canada's technology hub, has become one of Canada's leading comprehensive universities with 35,000 full- and part-time students in undergraduate and graduate programs. Waterloo, as home to the world's largest post-secondary co-operative education program, embraces its connections to the world and encourages enterprising partnerships in learning, research and discovery. In the next decade, the university is committed to building a better future for Canada and the world by championing innovation and collaboration to create solutions relevant to the needs of today and tomorrow. For more information about Waterloo, please visit www.uwaterloo.ca.
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Pamela Smyth
University of Waterloo
519-888-4777
