Tuesday, May 23, 2017

DataFest celebrates going beyond the numbers

From May 5 to 7, over 70 students from across campus participated in the first annual ASA DataFest competition hosted by the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science. The main goal of the competition is to have students collaborate and compete on a data analysis question that was provided by Expedia.com for 2017.

After intense data wrangling, analysis, and presentation design three teams took away the top prize for Best Insight, Best Visualization, and Best use of External Data. 

Congratulations to: 

• Team SixSigma winner of  Best Insight.
  • Hudson Ash,
  • Chengtao (Tony) Zou,
  • Li (Jerry) Guan, and
  • Kevin Wang
• Team Mr Goose for Best Visualization
  • Raymond Dinh;
  • Patrick Li;
  • Zixi (Jerry) Liu; and
  • Danying Xiao
• Team 404, winner of Best Use of External Data
  • Jonathan Barenboim;
  • Shivam Sharma;
  • Ilia Sucholutsky; and
  • Ellie Feygin

Registration is open for fall 2017 graduate housing

A message from Housing and Residences

Spaces are going fast in Columbia Lake Village. Apply today for fall 2017 graduate housing!

Just some of the benefits include:

• 4-month renewable contracts
• Live in a safe, quiet, clean community of grad students
• Close to campus with seasonal shuttle
• All-inclusive living (utilities, high-speed Internet, community events)
• Option to live in a 2-bedroom (CLV-North) or 4-bedroom townhouse (CLV-South)

For full details visit the Housing and Residences website.

Panel will deal with hesitation around menstruation

The Faculties of Environment, Arts, Applied Health Sciences, and Engineering are inviting members of the University community to the first-ever Menstrual Hygiene Day at Waterloo to raise awareness of period stigma and recognize the importance of menstruation in women’s health.

“This year, the theme of International Menstrual Hygiene Day is Education,” says a statement from the event organizers. “At the University of Waterloo, our aim is to empower everyone through education to draw attention to the extent of the period stigma and lack of menstrual hygiene around the world.”

The event will feature a panel discussion with Professor Susan Elliott of the Department of Geography and Environmental Management, Elizabeth Onyango,

PhD Candidate in Geography and Queen Elizabeth Scholar, Sabrina Rubli, co-founder and Executive Director of Femme International, and Amanda Jenkins, PhD Candidate in Applied Social Psychology at the University of Guelph.

There will be activities and free food as part of the event.

The event takes place on Friday, May 26 from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on the first floor foyer of the Science Teaching Complex. The panel discussion begins at 2:00 p.m.

Follow along on social media with @mhduw2017 and use the hashtag #menstruationmatters

The event is being held in support of International Menstrual Hygiene Day, which is May 28, and the HeForShe initiative for gender equality.

Tuesday's notes

We kick off a short week with a pair of ION-related closings at Bearinger Road and University Avenue as a final layer of asphalt is placed at the railway crossings.

• The Bearinger Road closure begins today and will last approximately four days.
• The University Avenue closure will begin Wednesday, May 24 and will last for approximately four days.

Similar works appears to be underway on Columbia Street as well as of this morning, but instead of closing the entire road, only one lane in each direction has been shut down while work is carried out at the railway crossing.

For more information, check the ION-related travel disruptions page on the Waterloo News site.

Also, when is Tuesday a Monday? When you are following the undergraduate calendar at the University of Waterloo, that's when! Today, a Tuesday, is actually a Monday class schedule for Waterloo students. "To balance the days, the loss of one holiday Monday class during the spring term will be made up by following a Monday schedule on May 23," says the important dates section of the calendar.

For the 616 undergraduate students who are scheduled to attend both Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University courses this week, this presents a bit of a headache, as students at Laurier will be following a Tuesday schedule.