Scholarships | Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute

The mission of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute (CPI) is to facilitate excellence in (collaborative) research in cybersecurity, privacy and cryptography.

Cybersecurity and Privacy Excellence Graduate Scholarship

In order to support our graduate students and reward their excellence, CPI is pleased to continue offering the Cybersecurity and Privacy Excellence Graduate Scholarship. This scholarship supports recipients with $10,000 CAD for one academic year. University of Waterloo graduate students working with CPI members or affiliates can consult the internal scholarships page for more details on how to apply.

Past Winners

Year	Winner(s)	Sponsors
2025	Matthew Regher	BTQ
2024	Vasisht Duddu Rasoul Akhavan Mahdavi	Mastercard Canada & BTQ
2023	Sajin Sasy	Mastercard Canada
2022	Bailey Kacsmar	CPI
2021	Siddharth Priya Mahbod Majid	BlackBerry CPI
2020	Shannon Veitch	BlackBerry
2019	Chang Ge	Symcor

Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute Undergraduate Award

CPI Undergraduate Awards for 2025 have launched. Full-time undergraduate students enrolled in the following course offerings are eligible:

Fall 2025 courses: CS 459, AFM 347, CO 487, SOC/LS 435, and SOC/LS 413

Spring 2025 courses: CS 453, CS 459, ECE 458, and GBDA 303

Winter 2025 courses: CO 487, CS 453, CS 459, and CS 489

Spring 2024 courses: CS489 4189, CS489 4927, and ECE 458

Winter 2024 courses: AFM 347, CO 487, CS 453, CS 459, and ECE 409

Fall 2023 courses: AFM 347, CO 487, CS 458, GBDA 303, GBDA 414, SOCI/LS 305, SOC/LS 413, and SOC/LS 435

Spring 2023 courses: CS 458, ECE 458, and SOC/LS 413

Each course offering will be assigned one award (courses with large enrollment may be assigned additional awards). Course instructors will select the winner(s) based on the overall grade in the course (minimum 90%). Each award is $1000.

Selection criteria:

For selecting the winner, instructors are required to use the overall course grade (minimum 90%). However, they can choose to use additional criteria (only for) breaking ties, including:

• additional objective criteria like consistency of performance in all the course deliverables (e.g., over 80% in all deliverables) and/or

• additional subjective criteria (like extent of participation in-class or in class forums)

Interested students should review eligibility details about the award.

Term	Courses	Winners	Sponsor
Spring 2025	GBDA 303 CS 459 CS 453	Min Htet Naing Palaksha Drolia Renee Wang	CPI
Winter 2025	CO 487 CS 453 CS 459 CS 489	Eric Wang & Ethan Liu Yi Bo Cheng Monica Suh Shari Sun	CPI
Spring 2024	CS489 4189 CS489 4927 ECE 458	Maya Coles Tony Zhou Sterling Tenn	Mastercard Canada
Winter 2024	AFM 347 CO 487 CS 453/489 CS 459/489 ECE 409	Cynthia Lai Kin Greyson Gould & Jack Zhao Zhengyi Zhao Minh Nguyen Jahnavi Shah	Mastercard Canada & BlackBerry
Fall 2023	AFM 347 CO 487 CS 458 GBDA 303 GBDA 414 SOC/LS 435	Jathushan Vasanthakumar Ryan Wu & Jason Ye Xiaoyu Yang Amna Malik Jacquelyn Yu Vanessa Vanpopic	Mastercard Canada & BlackBerry
Spring 2023	CS 458 ECE 458 SOC/LS 413	Andrew Dong & Samuel Orend Taya Davison & Willard Ma Angie Yuliana Zuluaga	CPI
Spring 2022	CS 458 ECE 458	Nathan Eric Grewal Jack Guo	CPI - (Pilot Program)
Winter 2022	CS 458	Ting Wei Liu	CPI - (Pilot Program)

CPI deeply appreciates the efforts of our faculty members who agree to take on the difficult task of evaluating the many worthy applicants for our scholarships. As such, we have listed their names next to the awards and years they helped adjudicate.

Scholarship Reviewers by Year & Award

Excellence Graduate Scholarship:

2025	Werner Dietl	Roberto Guglielmi	Bessma Momani
2024	W. Alec Cram	Roberto Guglielmi	Yousra Aafer
2023	Gautam C. Kamath	Arie Gurfinkel	W. Alec Cram
2022	Anindya Sen	W. Alec Cram	Werner Dietl
2021	Bernard Wong	Alec Cram	Vijay Ganesh