Friday, August 24, 2018

Strategic Plan consultations coming in September

The consultation phase of the University of Waterloo's strategic planning process kicks into high gear in just a few weeks.

A series of consultation sessions will be taking place on campus from September 10 to November 21. There will be 14 sessions dedicated to the seven issues discussed in the issue papers available on the Bridge to 2020 website, and eight stakeholder sessions; two each for faculty members, staff, undergraduate and graduate students. Additional Faculty-specific consultations are also in the works.

These consultations will feature remarks by President Feridun Hamdullahpur and Vice-President, Academic & Provost Jim Rush, and will be facilitated by Strategic Plan representatives.

The consultation phase focuses on engaging the Waterloo community through a variety of in-person, online, and digital means, to provide input on the University's Strategic Plan. The phase began in June 2018 with a kick-off event based on the strategic issue papers, hosted by Feridun Hamdullahpur that featured presentations by experts on each of the issue paper topics.

The sessions are open to members of the University community. A calendar of events is located on the Bridge to 2020 website. More sessions will be added throughout the consultation phase.

In memory of Robert Le Roy: Family establishes undergraduate chemistry scholarship

From left to right: Professors Robert Le Roy, Pavle Radovanovich, Christian Reber (University of Montreal) and Marcel Nooijen at the UW Grad House in 2007.

For nearly 50 years, University Professor Robert Le Roy was a presence in the Department of Chemistry. It is with deep regret that we learned he passed away quietly at home earlier this month, surrounded by his family.

The department was touched to learn that within days of their loss, Robert’s wife, Virginia, and their children, reached out to the university to establish the Robert J. Le Roy Memorial Scholarship. This annual scholarship will be awarded to the top Chemistry undergraduate in their third or fourth year based on academic performance. 

“Bob was a outstanding academic and a great colleague – he will have a long and lasting impact on this department,” says Professor Bill Power, Chair of Chemistry. “That his family is establishing this legacy in his name ensures future students will appreciate this impact as much as all his own past students do, to this day. We are enormously grateful to have this honour to bestow on our best students, and it is a very fitting tribute to Bob.”

A mentor of mentors

Professor Le Roy studied chemistry as an undergraduate and master’s student at the University of Toronto. Upon graduating with his PhD from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1971, he returned to Southern Ontario, where he joined the University of Waterloo as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry.

His work in theoretical chemistry modeling was ground-breaking, particularly in molecular spectroscopy and the calculation of interatomic and intermolecular forces – what he himself referred to as the “sex life” of simple molecules.

He was renowned for his development of the near-dissociation theory with R.B. Bernstein (the Le Roy-Bernstein theory), and for the derivation of the Le Roy Radius, defined as the internuclear distance between two atoms at which the Le Roy-Bernstein theory becomes valid. He was also the author of several well-known software tools designed to address a variety of problems in chemical or molecular physics.

Among his many awards, he received the Rutherford Memorial Medal in Chemistry from the Royal Society of Canada (1984) and the J. Heyrovsky Honorary Medal for Merit in the Chemical Sciences by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (1995). He was named a University Professor in 2011 – a rare title reserved for the University of Waterloo’s most internationally pre-eminent faculty.

Even after his retirement in 2013, Professor Le Roy remained highly active. He was often seen on campus, advising students and continuing to contribute to his field scientifically. He published nearly 20 papers as an emeritus professor, garnering nearly half of his overall citations during this period in his career.

“Bob was one of the most helpful and supportive people early on in my career at the University of Waterloo,” says Pavle Radovanovic, a professor in the Department of Chemistry. “He was always so generous in sharing his enormous knowledge and experience, and offering helpful advice. I will forever remember Bob for his optimism, enthusiasm, generosity, and passion for science. I will miss him very much.”

Professor Robert Le Roy in 1974.

Join us for a special memorial event

A special memorial event will be held for Professor Le Roy from 2-4 pm in the Science Teaching Complex (STC), at the University of Waterloo on Saturday, October 13, 2018. For more information please contact Meaghan Middleton.

Read more about Professor Le Roy in the Globe and Mail.

Donations to the Robert J. Le Roy Memorial Scholarship can be made online through the university’s Support Waterloo portal.

Student startup wants to bring clean water to those who need it most

Ashley Keefner and Vishal Vinodkumar in Haiti.

This is an excerpt of an article that originally appeared on The Water Institute's website.

According to the World Health Organization, 2.1 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water. Without safe drinking water, people are at risk of contracting water-borne diseases, which are responsible for more than 3.4 million deaths each year.

Three University of Waterloo Engineering students from the Conrad Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology program decided to tackle this global problem head-on and develop a social venture with a mission to make safe drinking water accessible for people in developing communities, by providing effective, simple, and low-cost point-of-use water treatment to those who need it most.  

“Our initial design used titanium dioxide to coat beads, which when added to water and left in the sun, would react with the UV light to destroy contaminants,” said Ashley Keefner, co-founder of CataLight. “What made our design different was that we were developing a way to immobilize titanium dioxide onto larger substrates while maintaining adequate efficiency.”

CataLight first competed in the Hult Prize competition – the world’s biggest engine for the launch of for-good, for-profit startups emerging from universities – where they made it to the finals at the Regional competition in Melbourne, Australia and placed within the top 100 out of 100,000 applicants internationally. Motivated by the other entrepreneurial students they met at the competition, the team left Melbourne determined to continue working on their startup. It wasn’t long after they got home that they were competing in the World’s Challenge Challenge (WCC), placing second internationally.   

Read the rest of the article on The Water Institute's website.

Library Course Reserves System Users: Password Change Recommended

This notice is to highlight a recent computer security issue detected and actioned by the University’s Information Systems and Technology (IST) information security team.

A recent cybersecurity review revealed that the University of Waterloo Library’s Course Reserves System had been recording, to a log file, the WatIAM userid and password of those who had accessed the system. This includes over 1,000 individuals who used the tool in November of 2016, where their user name and passwords were made available on a public web server. Those individuals have been contacted and given information security advice and direction.

This issue was corrected by the Library immediately following notification by IST.

To be prudent, we are recommending that anyone who used the Library’s Course Reserves System prior to August 13, 2018 change their password as soon as possible. IST and the Library are committed to information security and continue to work together to safeguard personal information.

Please direct any questions to the IST Service Desk, at helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or ext. 44357.