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Register for Wednesday's online Friesen Lecture with Sir Mark Walport
On Wednesday morning, Sir Mark Walport will deliver the Friesen lecture, “When Science meets Society: The competition between knowledge and values.”
Sir Walport is the recipient of the 2020 Henry G. Friesen International Prizewinner in Health Research, an award established in 2005 by the Friends of Canadian Institutes of Health Research (FCIHR), recognizing exceptional innovation by a visionary health leader of international stature.
This event will take place virtually via MS Teams Live. Be sure to register to receive the event link.
Waterloo Centre for German Studies announces book prize shortlist
A message from the Waterloo Centre for German Studies (WCGS).
The Waterloo Centre for German Studies (WCGS) is pleased to announce the shortlist for its annual Book Prize.
Established in 2017, the WCGS Book Prize recognizes first-time authors whose scholarly work contributes substantially to our understanding of any aspect of German-speaking society. The prize foregrounds good writing, scholarly relevance, originality, and the ability to reach audiences beyond the academic sphere.
This year’s shortlist, drawn from books published in 2020, demonstrates once again the vitality and broad scope of the research being done in German studies today. Each link leads to a description of the book and an interview with the author.
- Amstutz, Nina. Caspar David Friedrich: Nature and the Self. (Yale University Press) - A revelatory book that draws attention to previously neglected aspects of the painter’s engagement with natural science and philosophy.
- Eicher, John P.R. Exiled Among Nations: German and Mennonite Mythologies in a Transnational Age. (Cambridge University Press) - This striking transnational study explores how religious migrant communities negotiated with nationalism in the period 1870-1945.
- Eyerly, Sarah. Moravian Soundscapes: A Sonic History of the Moravian Missions in Early America. (Indiana University Press) - An original and compelling reconstruction of Moravian society in Pennsylvania that explores their songs and sounds.
- Fleischman, Thomas. Communist Pigs. An Animal History of East Germany’s Rise and Fall. (University of Washington Press) - The story of East Germany’s fateful embrace of industrial pork production is told in this ingenious new study.
- Florvil, Tiffany N. Mobilizing Black Germany: Afro-German Women and the Making of a Transnational Movement. (University of Illinois Press) - New ground is broken in this important chronicle of Black movements in Germany of the 1980s and 1990s.
- George, Alys X. The Naked Truth: Viennese Modernism and the Body. (University of Chicago Press) - An absorbing new interpretation of fin-de-siècle Vienna that places the body at the centre of early modernism.
The winner, who receives a CAD $3,000 prize, will be announced mid-December.
For inquiries, please contact the Waterloo Centre for German Studies (wcgs@uwaterloo.ca). For further information, please go to the WCGS Book Prize page.
Former Waterloo students among the best of the best
By Brian Caldwell. This article was originally published on Waterlo News.
Three former students at the University of Waterloo are in impressive company on a who’s who of young luminaries from the worlds of business, sports and everything in between.
Grocery billionaire Apoorva Mehta, trucking disruptor Alex Rodrigues and cryptocurrency inventor Vitalik Buterin all appear on a Hall of Fame list of 30 Under 30 achievers released this week by influential business magazine Forbes.
Also on the list are basketball superstar LeBron James, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, singing star Rihanna, tennis champion Naomi Osaka and more than 20 others at the top of their fields.
Forbes compiled the all-star list to mark the 10th anniversary of its annual 30 Under 30 selections in 20 categories — meaning the 30 names on its Hall of Fame list were chosen from 6,000 winners in the last decade.
“Ten years. 100,000 nominees. 6,000 revolutionaries across 20 industries,” the magazine said in its introduction to the list. “Within this all-time 30 Under 30 list: a Nobel laureate, six social media bigwigs, two crypto kings, two EV evangelists and the top-earning female athlete ever.”
Waterloo represents on Forbes Under 30 Hall of Fame
Mehta (BASc ’08), 35, made the list as the founder of Instacart, a privately held grocery-delivery business worth an estimated US$39 billion and in operation in more than 5,500 cities.
He earned a degree in electrical engineering from Waterloo in 2008 and failed with 20 other startup ideas before hitting on the concept for Instacart in 2012. Based in San Francisco, he now has a personal net worth of US$3.5 billion.
Rodrigues, 26, is co-founder and CEO of Embark Technology Inc., which went public via a merger last month with an estimated US$5-billion valuation just five years after its launch. The deal makes him the youngest CEO of a publicly traded company and puts his personal wealth at about US$500 million.
He and co-founder Brandon Moak were in year two of the mechatronics engineering program at Waterloo in 2016 when they hit the road for Silicon Valley with a self-driving golf cart they had built in the back of a pickup truck. They are now a major force in the autonomous trucking industry.
Buterin, 27, inventor of the Ethereum blockchain and cryptocurrency, as well as co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine, is one of the world’s youngest known crypto billionaires with an estimated personal fortune of US$1.4 billion.
He studied Computer Science at Waterloo for a year before winning a US $100,000 fellowship from the Thiel Foundation in 2014 to pursue his passion for the fledgling field of cryptocurrencies full-time.
Waterloo alumni also shine on the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 list
At least two people with connections to Waterloo also made North American 30 Under 30 lists for 2022.
Ryan Brown (BASc ’18), a Velocity alumni and co-founder of Salient Energy, has been recognized in the energy category. And Anna Wang, a systems design engineering student and co-founder of Copysmith, has been recognized in the enterprise technology category.
View the complete lists for 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30.
Remembering Shoukry Saleh, founding member of management sciences
This article was originally published on the Faculty of Engineering news page.
Shoukry Saleh, a retired faculty member who helped build a Waterloo Engineering department, died on August 9 at the age of 91.
In 1968, he was one of four professors recruited by Archibald Sherburne, then dean of Waterloo Engineering, to establish the Faculty’s management sciences department.
Instrumental to its launch the following year, Saleh served as department chair from September 1974 to August 1978.
While at the helm, he introduced the Faculty’s management sciences option that quickly became the most popular one selected by undergraduate students.
Well liked by his students and colleagues, Saleh remained an active part of management sciences after he retired.
He co-hosted the department’s 25th-anniversary event, was scheduled to be part of its golden anniversary celebrations that were postponed due to COVID-19 and regularly attended other activities, including holiday dinners.
Well respected in his field
Former colleague Edward Silver says he and his family were immediately welcomed by Saleh and his wife, Wendy, when he joined management sciences in 1969. The two families remained close friends over the years.
“Although our professional interests — teaching, research and consulting — were quite different, I know that Shoukry was very well respected in his field,” writes Silver, a retired management sciences professor. “I particularly appreciated his quiet, non-confrontational manner in dealing with areas of disagreement among faculty members.”
Silver recalls a humourous incident that happened when department members had lunch at a cafeteria on campus one winter.
“During lunch, a snowstorm blew in with strong, cold winds that we would have to face on the way back to our building,” he writes. “We stepped outside and hurried back to our building. When we arrived, we realized that Shoukry was not with us! Fortunately, we quickly determined that he had abandoned the quest, ducking into the first available building on the way back!”
Saleh’s daughter, Krista, describes management sciences as her father's "other family" and says donations in honour of him can be made to the department.
Donations to the department's 50th anniversary fund can be made through the University's Make a Gift to Waterloo page. Under Gift Designation, select the Other Fund option and type Department of Management Sciences 50th Anniversary Fund in the box below. At the bottom of the page, there is a section to indicate who the donation honours.
Tuesday's notes
Representatives from the President’s Anti-racism Task Force (PART) and members of the wider campus community met with Chancellor of St. Paul’s University College the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean last week to talk about tackling racism in Waterloo and Canada. Pictured (L-R) are Nigel Henriques, Associate Director, Systems in the Office of Advancement; Anita Taylor, Associate Director, Research Strategic Initiatives in the Office of Research; PhD candidate Naima Samuel, St. Paul's University College Chancellor Michaëlle Jean, Dean of Health Lili Liu, and Nick Manning, Associate Vice-President, Communications.
PhD oral defences
A number of thesis defences are coming up this week as the term comes to a close, including:
Computer Science. Jeremy Hartmann, "Merging The Real and The Virtual: An Exploration of Interaction Methods to Blend Realities." Supervisor, Daniel Vogel. Thesis available from MGO - mgo@uwaterloo.ca. Oral defence Thursday, December 9, 9:00 a.m.
Statistics and Actuarial Science. Marco Y. S. Shum, "On imprecision in statistical theory." Supervisors, Tony Wirjanto, Paul Marriott. Thesis available from MGO - mgo@uwaterloo.ca. Oral defence Thursday, December 9, 9:00 a.m.
School of Optometry & Vision Science. Melanie Mungalsingh, “Stimulus characteristics of a novel air-based multiple stimulus aesthesiometer.” Supervisors, Paul Murphy, Ben Thompson. Thesis on deposit in the Faculty of Science Graduate Office, PHY 2013. Visit the Thesis Submission Notices for details on requesting a copy. Oral defence Friday, December 10, 8:30 a.m.
Physics & Astronomy. Juan Cayuso, “Studying the largest scales in the Universe with the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect.” Supervisors, Matthew Johnson, Niayesh Afshordi. Thesis available in the Faculty of Science Graduate Office, PHY 2013. Visit the Thesis Submission Notices for details on requesting a copy. Oral defence Friday, December 10, 1:00 p.m.
Computer Science. Alireza Heidari, "Structured Prediction on Dirty Datasets." Supervisor, Ihab Ilyas. Thesis available from MGO - mgo@uwaterloo.ca. Oral defence Friday, December 10, 11:00 a.m.
Chemistry. Mahdi Beedel, “One-dimensional Nanostructures of Hafnium Oxides: Fabrication with and without Ti/Fe Doping, and Magnetic Properties.” Supervisor, Tong Leung. On deposit in the Faculty of Science Graduate Office, PHY 2013. Visit the Thesis Submission Notices for details on requesting a copy. Oral defence Monday, December 13, 9:00 a.m.
School of Optometry & Vision Science. Stephanie Wong, “Examination of Contact Lenses and Dry Eye Using Evaporimetry.” Supervisors, Lyndon Jones, Paul Murphy. Visit the Thesis Submission Notices for details on requesting a copy. Oral defence Tuesday, December 14, 11:30 a.m.
School of Public Health Sciences. Yamin Jahangir, "Exploring the factors influencing access to and utilization of sexual health services by South Asian men in Ontario." Supervisor, Samantha Meyer. Email Health Graduate Administration: ahs.graduate.administration@uwaterloo.ca for a copy. Oral defence Wednesday, December 15, 8:00 a.m.