News

A minisymposium in honour of Professor Xinzhi Liu’s 70th birthday, “Hybrid Dynamical Systems, Control, and Applications,” was held at the Third Joint SIAM/CAIMS Annual Meetings (AN25) in Montréal to celebrate his pioneering contributions to hybrid dynamical systems over the past four decades. A member of the department since 1990, Prof. Liu has advised many students who now hold faculty positions at leading research universities and key roles in industry. Featuring eight presentations, the two-part event showcased advances at the intersection of hybrid systems, control theory, and their applications, with invited speakers from academia and industry presenting new theoretical, computational, and applied perspectives. The minisymposium was co-organized by Applied Math Professor Jun Liu, along with Professors Peter Stechlinski (University of Maine, U.S.) and Kexue Zhang (Queen’s University, Canada), both alumni of Applied Mathematics.

Applied Mathematics members Professor Marek Stastna, Professor Francis Poulin, and Dr. Alain Gervais organized the inaugural Quantitative Climate Science (QCS) summer school at the University of Waterloo, July 21-25, 2025. This event included a series of six QCS seminars held over three days with guest speakers from Environment and Climate Change Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, workshops, and networking opportunities for undergraduate and graduate trainees.

Professor Rémi Abgrall of the Institut für Mathematik & Computational Science Universität Zürich delivered the Spring 2025 Applied Math distinguished lecture, “Virtual finite element and hyperbolic problems: the PAMPA algorithm.” Professor Abgrall is renowned for his groundbreaking work on numerical methods for PDEs, particularly for computational fluid dynamics.

Congratulations to Professors Jun Liu and Joe West for being recognized with Outstanding Performance Awards. The awards are granted to faculty members across the University of Waterloo for exceptional scholarship and teaching.

Congratulations to Applied Mathematics professor David Del Rey Fernández for receiving one of this year’s three Golden Jubilee Research Excellence Awards. The awards are granted to recognize outstanding research at the Faculty of Mathematics.

Congratulations to Applied Mathematics professor Henry Shum, one of two recipients of the Award for Distinction in Teaching in 2025. The award has been granted to two recipients in the Faculty of Mathematics each year since 2007 in recognition of outstanding pedagogical skills and commitment to students’ education.

Congratulations to five graduate students in Applied Mathematics who have been selected as recipients of the Ontario Graduate Scholarships (OGS) or the Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology (QEII-GSST) in the 2025-2026 competition. The OGS and QEII-GSST are prestigious awards given in recognition of academic excellence, research potential, and leadership qualities.

Six master’s and seven doctoral Applied Mathematics degrees were awarded in the 2025 Spring Convocation. Congratulations to the graduates!

Congratulations to Anita Layton, a professor at the Department of Applied Mathematics, who has been named the recipient of the 2025 CAIMS*SCMAI Research Prize. The prize is awarded by the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society (CAIMS) in “recognition of a body of work that had significant impact in mathematics, sciences, or industry.” Layton’s research on renal and cardiovascular physiology “has revolutionized our understanding of basic and translational science regarding the mechanistic and physiological roles played by sex differences in renal and cardiovascular systems, with profound implications in therapeutic and clinical practice.”

Read the full article on the Math Faculty website to learn more.

Applied Mathematics professor and Canada 150 Research Chair of Mathematical Biology and Medicine Anita Layton has been appointed as a University Professor. This designation, given to no more than two faculty members each year, celebrates the “exceptional scholarly achievement and international pre-eminence” of the recipients. The University of Waterloo currently has 16 other active University Professors across all faculties.

To learn more, read the full article on the Math Faculty website.