Wednesday, March 2, 2022

CEE celebrates WIL month with employer features

The University of Waterloo’s Co-operative and Experiential (CEE) department is participating in work-integrated learning (WIL) month with a series of employer features. WIL month takes place every March to celebrate successes and promote awareness of co-op and other forms of work integrated learning programs across Canada.

Waterloo has the largest co-op program in North America and is a leader of experiential learning. The University is ranked number one in Canada for employer-student connections. Throughout March, CEE will feature employers such as Questrade, Axonify, Kenna and Thomson Reuters. Visit the HIRE page to learn more about how these employers are attracting, engaging and retaining emerging talent like co-op students.

Showcase 2022: Call for Proposals

The Continuous Improvement, Change Management, and Project and Portfolio Management communities are excited to announce that we will be hosting our 3rd annual Showcase event on campus on the morning of Thursday May 26, 2022 and are seeking proposals.

The Showcase is a free, half-day long in-person event that brings campus colleagues together to share best practices, successes, and connect. It will feature poster exhibits and poster flash talks—all centered around ideas and practices that contribute to continuous improvement, change management, and project management. The Showcase is open to all employees and students.  Should public health measures change, the event will be hosted virtually on Microsoft Teams.

Proposals for poster exhibits and flash talks should be o on topics related to Continuous Improvement, Change Management, and Project Management, or a combination of the various methodologies.  

Successful proposals will meet some or all the following criteria: 

1. Addresses projects or initiatives and the application of best practices in one or more of Continuous Improvement, Change Management, and/or Project Management. 
2. Is geared to employees as the primary audience. 
3. Promotes tools, methodologies, or practices others can use and apply and that are supported by the campus. 
4. Identifies clear learning outcomes and key takeaways. 
5. Focuses on innovations or emerging trends, practices, or knowledge. 
6. Offers a mix of information-sharing and engagement. 

If you are interested in submitted a proposal, please consider registering your poster proposal by March 7th. Submissions will be reviewed and evaluated on the above criteria. You will be notified by March 21st whether your proposal has been selected. Support will be provided for all approved submissions. Please contact Breanna Lynn Michael if you have any questions.

Reminder: Register for Waterloo's virtual International Women's Day event 

A message from Community Relations and Events.

This year, the University of Waterloo is recognizing International Women's Day through a virtual International Women’s Day event, where discussions will highlight how our post-pandemic economic recovery must embrace everyone’s skills, perspectives and creativity. The virtual event runs from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, March 8. Register here.

The keynote address will come from Emily Mills, founder of How She Hustles, one of Canada’s leading influencer brands for diverse women leaders and entrepreneurs. Emily has been recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women and 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women, garnering recognition from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a meet-and-greet with Former US First Lady Michelle Obama. 

Along with President Vivek Goel and other campus leaders, a panel will feature Waterloo researchers including:

• Nada Basir, assistant professor at the Conrad School of Business and Entrepreneurship in the Faculty of Engineering, whose research examines how gender inequalities emerge, their impact, and the role of entrepreneurs in bringing about social change.
• Carla Fehr, associate professor in UWaterloo’s Gender and Social Justice program within the Faculty of Arts, who explores the values, practices and structures that constitute workplace culture.
• Ellen MacEachen, professor with the School of Public Health Sciences in the Faculty of Health, who examines how the design and performance of work and health systems can be improved and adapted to our fast changing economic, social and technological environments.

Join us as we discuss how to better engage women and racialized communities, examine the values that help us flourish, and investigate how work and health systems can respond to meet our quickly changing environments.

University of Waterloo students win the top prize at the Expand Your Empire Real Estate Case Competition

From left to right: Samantha Kerry, Matthew Van Bakel, Kyson Vi and Nathan Lee represented the University of Waterloo in a recent real estate case competition.

Four Waterloo students won first prize in a recent international real estate case competition hosted by Ryerson University in Toronto.

Samantha Kerry, a third-year architectural engineering student, Nathan Lee, a third-year civil engineering student, Matthew Van Bakel, a third-year planning student, and Kyson Vi, a fourth-year accounting and financial management student, teamed up for the Expand Your Empire conference.

The multi-disciplinary team had five weeks prior to the two-day conference to develop a comprehensive redevelopment proposal for a mixed-use parcel of land in the Greater Toronto Area.

Members then presented their plan – which included demographic analysis, 3D modelling and financial analysis, with a focus on transit – to a judging panel of industry professionals through multiple rounds of competition.

The Waterloo team took both first-place overall and an award for the most feasible design.

Students at the event, one of the largest real estate case competitions in North America, were challenged to focus on sustainable design.

Follow the links for more details on the complete results and conference.

A new chapter in manufacturing

This article was originally published on Waterloo News.

In recent years, factories have been steadily modernizing their facilities with more automation and manufacturing capabilities. With faster and better additive manufacturing solutions that can custom-make durable parts in one piece without the expense of the tooling, a new and exciting chapter in digital manufacturing has begun. This shift has attracted a new generation of engineers back to the shop floor.

“Additive manufacturing is reshaping the way manufacturing looks,” says Mihaela Vlasea, a professor in mechanical and mechatronics engineering and associate director at the Multi-Scale Additive Manufacturing (MSAM) lab at the University of Waterloo. “It's bringing more excitement back into manufacturing, especially for this young generation of students who live in the digital space.”

The MSAM lab is Canada’s largest academic-based research and development facility in metal additive manufacturing. It has state-of-the-art machinery and custom 3D printers that work with composites such as graphene, polymers and ceramics. The lab offers research programs and courses in support of graduate programs and runs regular workshops benefiting professionals working across industry sectors.

“There is a huge need for people with skills in additive manufacturing processes, material science, design for additive manufacturing, data science and process optimization,” Vlasea says. “We are finding that we can barely hold on to our students as they finish their degrees. Sometimes they leave for industry and come back to finish their degrees part-time.”

Filling a talent gap

Additive manufacturing is a high-tech skill. But as more companies are scaling up production to fabricate parts and services for their customer base, finding experts with this skillset is not easy. People tend to think of metal additive manufacturing as a simple matter of pushing a button to have a perfect part pop out, but setting up a successful print requires multidisciplinary skillsets. “It takes a lot of effort to be able to define all of the little levers in the process to generate quality parts, but once you have your designs and process parameters optimized, which is where skilled workforce comes in, production is good to go,” Vlasea says.

Additive manufacturing requires multidisciplinary skills and integrates everything from materials science and product design to robotics and computational data analytics, she says. Even areas such as machine learning and computer vision are part of it.

Vlasea is part of the MSAM team that includes research director Ehsan Toyserkani. The lab has a complement of more than 65 people including faculty, postdoctoral fellows and research associates, technicians, graduate and undergraduate students. The lab has graduated more than 57 MASc and PhD students from their programs and has employed 66 co-op students.

One of Vlasea’s current students, Roman Boychuk (‘BASc), is pursuing his master’s in mechanical engineering with a focus on simulating and predicting sintering behavior in binder-jet additive manufacturing. It is a cost-effective method of 3D printing that allows for fabricating parts out of powder media. Boychuk was drawn to this field in high school when he acquired a plastic 3D printer and began making protypes and parts for his drone. His hobby developed into a realistic career path through his undergrad experiences at Waterloo.

“My co-op terms in manufacturing and the courses I took in materials, solid mechanics and automation furthered my interest in metal additive manufacturing, and perfectly coincided with learning about the MSAM Lab at Waterloo,” Boychuk says. “My interest in additive manufacturing as a powerful enabling tool still remains and is one of my continuing motivations for helping to make additive manufacturing more accurate and affordable.”

Boychuk says that additive manufacturing is an exciting space to work in right now because it is such a powerful tool with potential to solve existing problems and opportunity for new discoveries. “I hope to follow up my academic work with experience in industry, helping to develop these tools and apply them to solve engineering challenges in a fast-paced environment.”

Talent done differently

A talent revolution is underway, and the effects are being felt in every sector. Waterloo’s robust talent ecosystem is equipped to respond - from world-leading co-operative education programs to research and innovations that drive real-world change. Learn how your organization can benefit.  

Beware of recent donation scams and other notes

IST is advising everyone to be aware of donation and phishing scams related to current events in Ukraine. If you get texts or e-mails seeking donations to support Ukraine, do not click on any links provided it's better to seek out the charity yourself. In times of emergency, donating to established charities like the Canadian Red Cross at their official web site is safest.  You can also look at evaluations and ratings of charitable organizations at Charity Intelligence Canada's web site to determine whether the request you received is legitimate."

You can find more cybersecurity resources at https://uwaterloo.ca/cyber-awareness/ and https://www.getcybersafe.gc.ca/.

Employers hosting Virtual Employer Information Sessions (VEIS) next week: Citadel & Citadel Securities, and Dialecte Inc Canada (Dialectica). Make sure to register WaterlooWorks and check the calendar for any updates!

Are you interested in building skills and knowledge of best practices in facilitating fully online courses? Any current or future University of Waterloo teaching assistant (TA) is eligible for this 4-week online certificate course: CEL0610 Getting Ready to Facilitate Online Courses: TA Training – Spring 2022. The course runs from March 21 through April 15. 

While this course has been specifically designed for a TA or preceptor, the insight into online course facilitation and skills developed will build proficiency at all levels up to the instructor role. You will discover how to successfully contribute to the facilitation of an online course, foster student engagement, support student outcomes, and build a sense of community using various forms of interaction. Participants will also learn how to use LEARN LMS tools to create presence and connection, assess student learning and work effectively in their TA/Preceptor role. Register on Gosignmeup.