News

Professor Mark Giesbrecht will become the 12^th dean of the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Mathematics, a five-year appointment that begins on July 1, 2020. The distinguished computer scientist has nearly 20 years’ experience at Waterloo and he will leverage his abilities as an administrator, teacher and researcher to lead the Faculty of Mathematics.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, researchers and clinicians have rushed to understand the available treatments and procedures to mitigate this rapidly growing threat to human health. The sheer volume of studies published on COVID-19 — in countries spanning the globe — as well as lessons learned from prior epidemics and pandemics, simply cannot be gathered and assessed quickly enough using traditional manual methods during this time of crisis.

Computer scientists at the Cheriton School of Computer Science have developed a new system that helps Internet users ensure their online data is secure. Called Mitigator, the software-based system includes a plugin that users can install in their browser, which will give them a secure signal when they visit a website verified to process its data in compliance with the site’s privacy policy.

In open source software repositories such as GitHub — an online platform for software development where developers store their projects and collaborate with other developers — the quality of a coder’s technical contributions is undoubtedly important. Such communities have long seen themselves as meritocracies where code is king and decisions are based solely on technical excellence.

A multidisciplinary team of researchers at Waterloo’s Cheriton School of Computer Science and Western University has developed a computational method that within minutes can identify and classify viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, the respiratory pathogen responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent PhD graduate Priyank Jaini has been awarded second place in the Faculty of Mathematics Doctoral Prize competition. Now in its second year, these prizes are awarded annually to recognize the achievements of top graduating doctoral students in the Faculty of Mathematics. As a silver recipient, Priyank will receive $1,000.

As global COVID-19 lockdowns have us sitting through days of video conferences, it becomes clear that paying attention online is hard work.

In two new papers, researchers from the Cheriton School of Computer Science and Microsoft Research explore people’s attentiveness in video conferences to understand how to make the online meetings more comfortable and effective.

The University of Waterloo’s first-ever virtual Concept $5K competition challenged entrepreneurs to pitch to an online audience instead of a packed auditorium. Confident in the value of their creation, the founders of Reflect rose to the occasion and walked away with $5,000 to invest in their growing business.

The following was excerpted from an article published on the website of CS-Can/Info-Can, the nation’s professional society dedicated to representing all aspects of computer science and the interests of the discipline to Canadians.

Some jurisdictions in Canada and around the world are using cell phone data to track the spread of COVID-19. How would this work? What are the privacy concerns around using personal data for this purpose?