Sophie Spirkl, an assistant professor of Combinatorics and Optimization, has received a prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Spirkl is one of 125 early career researchers in the United States and Canada who received a Fellowship this year.
Laura Bumbulis, an undergraduate student in combinatorics and optimization, hadn’t completed much science-related work since taking grade 11 biology.
That changed in 2021 as Bumbulis played a key role in improving efficiency at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) during her co-op work term.
July 28 was the date of the first presentation of the new: "Optimization: Theory, Algorithms, Applications Lecture Series" organized by The Fields Institute and the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization.
Jodie Wallis (BMath ’93) was a natural fit for Operations Research at the Faculty of Mathematics. “I liked how Operations Research brought together different disciplines and applied directly to business problems,” she affirmed. “That process of taking a problem, considering multiple layers of solutions, and ending up with something that’s elegant and workable in the real world was appealing to me.”
“When I was a kid, I always begged my parents to buy me those little Mind Benders puzzles,” remembered Rose McCarty. “My favorite puzzles were the ones that were so difficult that I wasn’t sure whether or not I could actually solve them. At Waterloo Math, I’m the one coming up with different puzzles to solve. I have an opportunity to tackle big, imprecise, unwieldly problems that determine what my field will look like in 20 years.”
Ishan Bansal was named a University Finalist for the Alumni Gold Medal for a Master’s student. He worked under the supervision of Professors Chaitanya Swamy and Jochen Koenemann.
After completing his BSc at Chennai Mathematical Institute, Bansal received two scholarships, the William Tutte Postgraduate Scholarship and the David Johnston International Student Entrance Scholarship.
Like most entrepreneurs, Michael Egan (BMath ’74) has experienced his fair share of twists and turns on the road to success.
“I was never the type to plan out my career,” says Alfred Menezes, a professor in the Department of Combinatorics & Optimization (C&O) at the University of Waterloo. “It’s always been about being in the right place at the right time and taking advantage of every opportunity.” In 1998 Menezes resigned a tenured position at Auburn University to join the Faculty of Mathematics at Waterloo, where he had previously earned three degrees, including his PhD.
“While working as an instructional support assistant (ISA), I remember the first time a professor asked for a volunteer to teach a lecture while he was at a conference,” remembers Josué Kurke. “My hand shot up. I donned a professorial kind of jacket with the elbow patches and went all out. Over time, I’ve realized that I feel most at home in front of a classroom. I want to spend my career talking to people about math.”
The University of Waterloo emerged as the Canadian institution with the largest involvement in the latest round of submissions selected by the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization process.