Faculty

The University of Waterloo’s Department of Chemical Engineering is tied for first in Canada with the University of Alberta's Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering in the 2020 Global Ranking of Academic Subjects, released by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy.

The Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, which also publishes the prestigious Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), is an independent organization dedicated to “research on higher education intelligence and consultation.” It has been using a transparent methodology and objective third-party data to rank and present the world’s top universities since 2003 and academic subjects since 2009.

The Global Ranking of Academic Subjects measures universities’ quality of education, faculty, research output and influence, as measured by citations.

The Department of Chemical Engineering’s Aiping Yu has been awarded a prestigious 2020 E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship.

Each year, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) recognizes six highly promising early-stage researchers in the natural sciences and engineering with an E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship, in recognition of their efforts and to enhance their research capacity so that they can become leaders in their field and inspire others.

Professor Emeritus Ken O’Driscoll passed away on August 4, 2020, at the age of 89.

O’Driscoll was an internationally respected polymer science researcher, a talented teacher, and a kind and inspirational mentor who worked in the Department of Chemical Engineering between 1970 and 1992. His research in polymerization kinetics and polymer synthesis and characterization influenced many products we know and still use today, including hydrophilic contact lenses (also known as ‘soft contact lenses’), which he developed in 1971.

The Department of Chemical Engineering placed 87^th in worldwide university rankings for 2021, joining three other Waterloo Engineering subjects in the top 100.