News

For David Khazzam, one of the great joys of university was getting to do a little bit of everything.

David is this year’s recipient of the Faculty of Mathematics K. D. Fryer Gold Medal, an honour given to a student who exemplifies academic excellence, good citizenship, and involvement in extracurricular activities. He graduates this Friday with a Bachelor of Computer Science degree.

The Cheriton School of Computer Science has been ranked number one nationally for the fourth year in a row, according to the Maclean’s 2024 university rankings released yesterday. Based on program reputation in computer science, Waterloo shared the podium for first place with the University of Toronto, and based on research reputation, shared the podium for first with the University of Toronto and UBC.

On Friday, October 6, the Cheriton School of Computer Science held the 2023 Cheriton Research Symposium, an annual showcase of research excellence made possible by David R. Cheriton’s generous investment in education.

Blake VanBerlo, a PhD candidate at the Cheriton School of Computer Science, is one of five recipients at Waterloo of a prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. Valued at $150,000 over three years, Vanier Scholarships recognize doctoral students who have exhibited academic excellence, research potential and leadership.

Cheriton School of Computer Science Professor N. Asokan has been named a 2023 Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the highest national honour a researcher in the arts and humanities, social sciences, and sciences can achieve.

This fall, the University of Waterloo is welcoming 10 outstanding first-year students — four of whom will be studying computer science — through the Schulich Leader Scholarships program. Awarded annually to 100 high school students across Canada, the Schulich Leader Scholarships are granted to exceptional students who show great entrepreneurial promise in science, technology, engineering and math.

Cheriton School of Computer Science Professor Sepehr Assadi has been named one of three Faculty of Mathematics Research Chairs. Research chairs are conferred to recognize scholarly achievement and pre-eminence in a particular field of knowledge. In addition to the prestigious recognition, research chairs receive $50,000 in research funding and a teaching reduction of one course per year over the three years of the appointment. 

Cheriton School of Computer Science Professor Gautam Kamath has received a 2023 Faculty of Mathematics Golden Jubilee Research Excellence Award. The $2,500 prize, established in 2017 to mark the 50^th anniversary of the Faculty of Mathematics, is conferred to faculty members who have made outstanding research contributions.

Recent master’s graduate Ende Jin, his advisor Professor Yizhou Zhang, and their Harvard colleague Professor Nada Amin have received a Distinguished Paper Award at PLDI 2023, the 44^th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation.

Master’s graduate Lindsey Tulloch and her advisor Professor Ian Goldberg have won one of three Andreas Pfitzmann Best Student Paper Awards for “Lox: Protecting the Social Graph in Bridge Distribution.” Their award-winning paper was presented at PETS 2023, the 23^rd Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, held this year from July 10–15 in Lausanne, Switzerland.