News

Researchers at the Cheriton School of Computer Science have secured nearly $425,000 in funding to support two research projects through the National Cybersecurity Consortium (NCC), a federally incorporated not-for-profit organization committed to advancing Canada’s cybersecurity ecosystem.

Professors Sujaya Maiyya and Florian Kerschbaum, members of Waterloo’s Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute, are among those awarded funding in this NCC round, which distributed more than $1.5 million to Waterloo researchers alone.

A conversation with Professor Yuntian Deng, where he discusses his natural language processing and machine learning research, advice for aspiring computer scientists, and his excitement about joining the Cheriton School of Computer Science.

A conversation with Professor Xiao Hu, where she discusses her database theory research and its applications to practical database systems, advice for aspiring computer scientists, and what excites her about joining the 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.

Cheriton School of Computer Science Professors Freda Shi and Victor Zhong have been named Canada CIFAR AI Chairs and appointed as Faculty Members at the Vector Institute. They are two of three distinguished researchers in the latest cohort to receive this prestigious national recognition.

A trio of Waterloo’s top algorithmic programmers showcased their expertise at the 48^th International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals, held in Astana, Kazakhstan, from September 15 to 20, 2024. This prestigious global competition attracted elite programming talent from over 140 universities, representing more than 50 countries.

The University of Waterloo has recognized recent PhD graduate Dr. Nils Lukas with the 2024 Alumni Gold Medal for his exceptional academic performance in a doctoral program. This prestigious award, conferred by Alumni Relations, features a custom-crafted, 24-carat gold-plated medal embossed with the university’s seal. Since 1970, the Alumni Gold Medal has been conferred to top graduating students from Waterloo’s six faculties at convocation.

Professor Ihab Ilyas has been awarded the prestigious 2024 C.C. Gotlieb Computer Award in recognition of his contributions to building large-scale machine learning systems for data integration, data cleaning and knowledge construction.