Funding and awards

Funding:

Graduate students in the Department of Applied Mathematics enrolled in PhD and Master's (thesis) programs normally receive financial support during the course of their graduate studies, at a level that will cover academic costs and living expenses. (Funding is normally available for four years for PhD students and two years for Master's students, as long as the student remains in good standing.) When applying for admission, students automatically apply for funding.

All holders of NSERC Postgraduate Scholarships receive an additional stipend of $10,000 per year in the form of a scholarship.

The main sources of financial support are:

  1. External scholarships from NSERC and OGS. Only Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada are eligible for NSERC scholarships. OGS scholarships are primarily awarded to domestic students, but a small proportion of these awards are allotted to international students.
  2. Research Assistantships (RA) paid from the research grants of individual faculty members.
  3. Teaching Assistantships (TA), which involve tutorial and/or marking duties. The standard maximum amount of TA work that will be assigned to a graduate student in one term is two TA units, or ten hours of work per week. Students who are in good academic standing may request additional employment at the University, to a maximum of 20 hours per week, as outlined on the Guidelines for graduate student employment web page. Over the course of the year, students are typically provided with a maximum of 4 TA positions. However, the number of TAs is reduced while students are in receipt of major scholarships.
  4. University of Waterloo scholarships and student visa bursaries.

For more information, please visit the Discover Graduate Studies webpage.

Awards:

Doctoral Award: The Applied Mathematics Doctoral award, valued at $200, will be given annually for the best PhD thesis in the Applied Mathematics Department. The award is given out in Fall of each year and the recipient is based on the nominees (Governor General’s Gold Medal and Alumni Gold Medal) from that same calendar year.

Note: Alumni Gold Medal nominations are normally due in August, for students convocating the previous spring or the next fall and the Governor General’s Gold Medal nominations are normally due in April, for students convocating the previous fall or the next spring.

Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award: Each term, teaching assistants (TAs) are evaluated by the instructor of the course(s) in which they assist. The TAs with the strongest evaluation receive the Applied Mathematics Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.