David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
The Cheriton School of Computer Science is named for David R. Cheriton, who earned his PhD in Computer Science at the University of Waterloo in 1978. In 2005, Professor Cheriton made a transformational gift to the school that supports named chairs, faculty fellowships, and graduate scholarships.
News
Meng Xu and Sihang Liu awarded $254k from National Cybersecurity Consortium to strengthen security of LLM agents
Professors Meng Xu and Sihang Liu have received $254,116 in funding from the National Cybersecurity Consortium, a federally incorporated not-for-profit organization committed to advancing Canada’s cybersecurity ecosystem.
Their project, Securing LLM Agents Against Malicious or Vulnerable Tools, aims to identify and mitigate security risks in agentic systems — AI systems capable of making autonomous decisions and taking actions to achieve specific goals.
Waterloo Black advances to 2026 ICPC North America Championships
Four teams of algorithmic programmers from the University of Waterloo placed within the top 10 at the 2025 ICPC East Central North America contest, held on November 9 at the University of Windsor.
Competing against 86 teams from universities across east central North America, Waterloo’s trios of programmers placed second, third, sixth and ninth at the 2025 ECNA, underscoring the university’s long-standing strength in competitive programming.
Turning physiotherapy into child’s play
What if your gym routine consisted of gliding across a forest, skewing fruits like a ninja, or racing on a Formula 1 track?
That’s the vision behind Hiro, a Waterloo-based startup that is gamifying physiotherapy exercises for children with disabilities — by including people with disabilities at the research’s core.
Events
PhD Defence • Human–Computer Interaction • Exploring how User Interface Constraints Can Improve User Outcomes while Reading and Writing
Please note: This PhD defence will take place in DC 3317 and online.
Nikhita Joshi, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
Supervisor: Professor Daniel Vogel
PhD Seminar • Natural Language Processing | Informational Retrieval • Breaking the Black Box: Open-Source Advances in Reranking for Information Retrieval
Please note: This PhD seminar will take place online.
Ronak Pradeep, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
PhD Seminar • Human–Computer Interaction • Exploring VR Streaming as an Emerging Mass Medium
Please note: This PhD seminar will take place online.
Liwei Wu, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
Supervisor: Professor Jian Zhao