David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science

Based on its program and research reputation, the Cheriton School of Computer Science has again been ranked number one in Canada in the 2025 Maclean’s university rankings. This marks the fifth consecutive year that CS at Waterloo has received this prestigious distinction.

A team of theoretical neuroscientists has received the European Neural Network Society Best Paper Award at ICANN 2024, the 33^rd International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks. The prestigious recognition was given for their paper “Biologically-plausible Markov Chain Monte Carlo Sampling from Vector Symbolic Algebra-encoded Distributions.”

Led by P. Michael Furlong, Research Officer at the NRC-UW Collaboration Centre, along with colleagues Kathryn Simone, Nicole Dumont, Madeleine Bartlett, Terrence Stewart and Professors Jeff Orchard and Chris Eliasmith, the work describes a way that a network of spiking neurons can generate random samples from a probability distribution. The distribution is encoded using vector symbolic algebra, a type of compositional language embedded in a vector space.

On Friday, September 27, the School of Computer Science held its annual Cheriton Research Symposium, a showcase of research excellence made possible by David R. Cheriton’s generous investment in computer science research. In the afternoon, the School hosted a well-attended poster session featuring the work of 12 graduate students.