Monday, December 7, 2020

Research Talks presents Mapping the Human Brain

A message from the Office of Research.

Interested in learning about the fascinating research underway related to the human brain?

Join the next Research Talks for Mapping the human brain: a closer look at cognition, behaviour, and degenerative disease on Tuesday, December 15 (11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m.).

Please register to receive a link to take part in this online panel presentation and Q&A featuring:

Amer Burhan (Modulating brain networks with non-invasive brain stimulation to treat neuropsychiatric illnesses): Amer Burhan is a geriatric psychiatrist, physician-in-chief, and endowed chair for applied mental health research at the Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health. As a clinician, educator, and investigator, whose career is focused on complex mental health presentation in old age and on therapeutic brain stimulation, he will discuss modulating brain networks with non-invasive brain stimulation such as electric and magnetic transcranial stimulation to treat neuropsychiatric illnesses.

Myra Fernandes (Memory and the life cycle of the brain): Myra Fernandes is a professor in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Waterloo. Her research identifies cognitive processes and key brain structures supporting memory function. She will discuss the brain changes that accompany aging and how they impact our ability to think, communicate, and remember, and outline techniques to enhance memory capability and performance.

Peter Hall (Reaching beyond conventional brain health metrics): Peter Hall is a professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo, and director of the Prevention Neuroscience Laboratory. He will discuss the rationale for reaching beyond conventional brain health metrics to identify new approaches to brain health assessment that might eventually play a role in early diagnosis of brain diseases.

Donna Kwan (A team science approach to looking across the neurodegenerative spectrum): Donna Kwan is a clinical neurospsychologist and the neurospsychology platform lead for the Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative (ONDRI) and Ontario Brain Institute (OBI) funded initiative. She will outline the team science approach across the neurodegenerative spectrum and how she collaborates with scientists, clinicians, statisticians, and community members to understand neurodegenerative disease.

Concept 5K winners named

This article was originally featured on the Concept blog.

As we close the book on another semester of online classes and events, we recognize the non-stop innovation from UWaterloo students and celebrate the newly crowned Fall 2020 Concept $5K Winners. As the pandemic slows down many industries and businesses, these incredible students continue to develop new ideas. With an eye on the future and unperturbed by the chaos of the present, we saw another 75+ teams apply to compete in the Concept $5K.

Student Ideas covered an incredibly wide variety of sectors, and our Semi-Finals featured representatives from every faculty. Our new Climate Change Grant, in partnership with UWaterloo’s Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change (IC³) saw a number of impressive teams advance to the Concept $5K Finals. Of the finalists, four are directly focusing on climate change solutions.

“New enabling technologies are going to play a big role in tackling climate change by helping us decarbonize our lives and reduce risks to our health, infrastructure and safety," said Simon Glauser, Managing Director of IC³ of the new partnership. When IC³ set out to partner with the team at Concept, we wanted to use this first Climate Change Grant to test our belief that UWaterloo students and faculty are particularly well-suited to play an outsized role in finding climate solutions.”

Simon’s beliefs rang true as the innovative ideas presented proved the community’s ability to tackle climate change issues. “What we got was an overwhelmingly clear signal that UWaterloo has the potential to be a major hub for climate technology innovation.” Simon said of the competitors, “We’re looking forward to building on this initial step to give students and faculty a path to bring their ideas to the world”.

Also impressed by the ingenuity and ideas from UWaterloo students was our panel of judges making the tough decisions to award these grants. A big thank you to these fine folks who took the time to review the pitches, heartily debate, and eventually select the winners. This semester that honour went to John Dick, Velocity/Concept Business Advisor, Ashley Keefner, Director of Business Operations & Strategy at Membio, and Qhalisa Khan, Analyst at Amplify Capital. All of the finalists presented incredible ideas, but the winners stood out amongst a highly impressive field.

And the winners are…

ChangeRoom, a fashion-tech startup that connects the vast array of sustainable clothing brands with the growing number of eco-conscious customers through an intuitive and simple mobile marketplace.  

Miss Mechanic, an on-call automotive service support system provided by women, for women, to make informed decisions in a traditionally male-dominated industry.

mtion Interactive, which is developing a twitch for virtual reality.  

XP Fantasy, an esports community platform where users can use their knowledge, experience and passion for various esports to compete in daily fantasy contests to win tangible prizes.

Climate Change Grant Winner

UBIAir – Air Pollution Monitoring Platform, is a real-time, crowdsourced, IoT-based air quality monitoring ecosystem using IoT sensors for air pollution surveillance. 

The People’s Champ

In addition to these winning teams chosen by our judges, we also relied on our virtual audience to help pick their representative as the People’s Champ. We had over 7,000 views of the pitch videos this semester and lots of encouraging comments and likes. The winning team will take home $500 in grant funding as well as the hearts of our online audience. The people have spoken, and this semester your People’s Champ is Cove. Cove is building a platform that provides healthcare providers and their patients with digital suicide intervention tools they can use to improve mental healthcare outcomes related to suicide.

A big thank you to everyone who got involved and was able to participate in the Concept $5K Finals from a safe social distance. The Concept $5K competition will return again next semester. Until then, continue to refine your ideas and prepare for the virtual spotlight by meeting with Concept Coaches.

Once again the University of Waterloo community has shown its passion for entrepreneurship and dedication to innovation. We look forward to a bright future featuring even more incredible ideas like the ones highlighted today. To stay in the know about other exciting opportunities and to see how these teams progress follow us on social media and sign up for our newsletter for your weekly dose of Concept news.

For more information about the teams behind the Concept $5K winners, read the full article on Concept's blog.

Campus buildings to be locked as the holidays loom

Most academic and student service buildings will be locked beginning Tuesday. The building lockdown will run from December 8 to January 10, 2021, with some exceptions, including:

• The Davis Centre (DC) will remain open to students from December 8 to December 18;

• Health Services (HS) will remain open to students from December 8 to December 23, and open again on January 4, 2021;

• the Science Teaching Complex (STC) will remain open to students from December 8 to December 18;

•  South Campus Hall (SCH) will remain open to students from December 8 to December 23; and

• the Student Life Centre (SLC) will remain open to students from December 8 to December 23, and will also be open on December 24, 29, 30 and 31. 

You can also find these details on the accessing campus web page. 

Employees who have approval to work on campus will need a key, proxcard, or fob to access locked buildings during this period. If you need a key or to program either a proxcard or fob, contact your faculty or department administrator to request access.

If you’re an access control administrator and would like assistance with granting proxcard/fob access permission to an individual, submit an RT request to Information Systems & Technology (IST). 

Proxcards or fobs can be programmed for new exterior doors with electronic access control. If an employee doesn’t have a proxcard or fob, one can be purchased from IST for $6.50 with an account number. 

Looking ahead, the University will be closed from December 24 to January 3 for the holiday break, and only essential personnel should be on campus during this time. Access to research space during the closure will be granted by faculty deans and will be limited to COVID research and critical lab maintenance activities.