News

Growing up in Brazil, computer science student Enzo Porto always loved the ocean. After finishing classes or during stressful weeks, he would often retreat to the family’s beach house to unwind. Enzo’s love for the ocean deepened further when he moved to Peru at 11 years old. He fondly recalls how Peruvians would hit the beach to celebrate New Year’s.

N. Asokan has been named a University Professor.

Conferred by the University of Waterloo, this rare and prestigious honour recognizes exceptional scholarly achievement and international pre-eminence. Once appointed, a faculty member retains the designation until retirement.

What if doctors could more accurately diagnose and monitor blood cancer with a simple blood draw? This vision is becoming a reality thanks to research at Rapid Novor, a Waterloo-based company co-founded by Dr. Bin Ma, a computer science professor at the University of Waterloo.

Ricardo Baeza-Yates, a Waterloo PhD computer science alumnus, has received the 2025 ACM Luiz André Barroso Award, recognizing his pioneering contributions to algorithms and information retrieval as well as his leadership in fostering a vibrant transnational research community across Latin America.

A Cheriton School of Computer Science–led research team won the Social Impact Award at the 2026 Canadian Undergraduate Conference on AI (CUCAI), held in early March.

CUCAI is Canada’s largest undergraduate AI conference. Every year, it connects around 300 students nationwide with industry leaders and innovators to “inspire the future leaders of AI.”

The Association for Computing Machinery has named Matei Zaharia as the recipient of the 2025 ACM Prize in Computing for his visionary development of distributed data systems and computing infrastructure, which has enabled large-scale machine learning, analytics, and AI at global scale.

Cameron Seth, a PhD student at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, took home the Totzke Trophy at the University of Waterloo’s 64^th annual Athletic Awards Banquet.

Which of the following might leave a University of Waterloo student trembling in fear?

(A) Sleeping in and missing a midterm

(B) Being at the tail end of the semester and not having a co-op placement yet

(C) Seeing a Canada goose on the way to class

Professor Pascal Poupart has received a $50,000 grant from CIBC to support artificial intelligence research through PhD-level training. The award marks the first research collaboration between CIBC and the University of Waterloo focusing specifically on AI, and reflects the bank’s commitment to growing AI talent in Canada by funding doctoral research.

Titled Representation Learning for Tabular Data with Heterogeneous Feature Types, the CIBC-funded research will support PhD candidate William Loh, who is supervised by Professor Poupart.

In the age of AI, many are concerned about the impacts it could have on career prospects. AI has already automated some tasks, and media reports have specifically discussed the impacts of AI on entry-level jobs in coding.

However, students and alumni at the University of Waterloo are much more optimistic about the future, and the general sentiment is that AI presents opportunities, not threats.