Thursday, December 8, 2022

Michael Steele announced as CEE Employer Impact Conference keynote speaker

By Namish Modi.

"How will social responsibility and global citizenship impact the evolution of talent?"

Michael Steele, a well-known philanthropist and co-op alumnus, plans to address this question during his keynote speech at the inaugural CEE Employer Impact Conference.

Steele (BASc ’81) will speak at the virtual conference hosted by University of Waterloo Co-operative and Experiential Education (CEE) on February 15, 2023. As a business leader and a co-founder of The Steele Family Foundation, he is an advocate for supporting access to education, basic humanitarian services and community support for disadvantaged people.

"To have Michael on board to address these future-focused topics, that we all need to start planning for, is an exciting opportunity," says Norah McRae, Associate Provost, Co-operative and Experiential Education. "The Steele Family Foundation helps provide students with opportunities to develop and apply their skills in a non-profit setting — something that students can then apply to various industries."

Making a difference for next-gen talent

A former co-op student himself, Steele leveraged his co-op experience and engineering skills to address societal challenges throughout his career. He is a business development leader in sectors ranging from mining to food processing to real estate. Steele is determined to inspire Waterloo students from all disciplines to become change makers in the non-profit sector and beyond.

The Steele Family Foundation supports this vision by helping to eliminate financial barriers to students who play varsity sports or work with non-profits. Steele is a former member of the Waterloo Warriors track and field team. The foundation’s support helps student to thrive as both athletes and as community builders. In 2022, Steele and his spouse Stacey made two major donations to Waterloo, including one that helps fund co-op positions in the global non-profit sector.

Discussing the evolution of talent

As a supporter of Waterloo co-op and a business leader, Steele’s experience and expertise is a valuable addition to CEE’s upcoming Employer Impact Conference. He recognizes how students can evolve with the changing future of work and become better global citizens.

With the transition to hybrid and remote work, the increase in automation/AI and growing social awareness — career paths are fundamentally changing. The theme of the Employer Impact Conference is The Talent Evolution. Steele will speak from his own experience and provide insight into the power of students as agents of change in an evolving work environment.

At the conference, CEE staff, industry experts, and employers will discuss how the workforce is changing. Attendees of the free conference will gain insight on topics such as recruiting emerging talent, creating powerful job postings, equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives and building awareness of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Learn more about the conference sessions and speakers

Register for the Employer Impact Conference

Building a portable brain scanner

By Jon Parsons. This article originally appeared in the Fall 2022 issue of Waterloo Magazine.

Seconds matter when it comes to strokes. 

Fast identification and early treatment of a stroke can mean the difference between a speedy recovery and a lasting brain injury or even death.  

Now, a new company co-founded by Dr. Atefeh Zarabadi (PhD ’15), is set to give health-care professionals a revolutionary tool for detecting strokes and other brain injuries — a portable brain scanner that could even be used ahead of a patient reaching the hospital.  

AiimSense was launched in 2019 and is currently in Velocity, the University’s flagship entrepreneurship program. 

“When the pandemic hit, we started pushing our product development even more because of the link between increased risks of strokes after COVID-19 infection,” Zarabadi said. “It gave the research a whole new relevance.”  

Now a post-doctoral fellow researching neuroscience in the Faculty of Health’s School of Public Health Sciences under the supervision of Dr. John Mielke, Zarabadi says the name of the company is an abbreviation of Artificial Intelligence Imaging Sensors.    

“Along with the rapid diagnosis of strokes, we see application for the portable scanner in other brain diseases like tumours and traumatic brain injuries,” she said. “Our vision is to make it so brain scans can be accessible and practical as part of any brain health screening.” 

Zarabadi’s co-founder in the company, Mohammad Chavoshi (MEng ’16), is a trained senior electrical and computer engineer and has deep experience in the commercialization of telecommunications products. The AiimSense multidisciplinary team has completed the discovery phase and demonstrated the feasibility of the technology through several versions of prototypes of their brain scanner.  

Preparing to take it to clinical settings

“We started out with a benchtop prototype and tested it on a phantom head, and now we are working on a compact version that can be used at the patient’s bedside,” Zarabadi said. The team has completed preclinical trials and is currently in the research ethics stage to eventually bring the technology into clinical settings.  

It is a journey which has a few more years ahead, but Zarabadi sees a bright future for the new health technology, especially since there are no other similar commercialized products in the field.  

As a health-tech company with ambitious goals, Zarabadi says AiimSense benefited immensely from the support of several organizations in the Waterloo startup ecosystem.  

She says Velocity and the innovation hub at Communitech have consistently provided know-how and resources for the fledgling company, while the Grand River Hospital has been a strong community partner.   

“Communitech’s Fierce Founders program was invaluable,” Zarabadi says. “It is a competitive program open to all female founders across Canada, and it was an amazing experience to meet and learn from other fellow founders. The whole innovation ecosystem connected to the community made it so I could bring this from an idea to reality.”  

The Velocity incubator provided a working space and a machine shop, as well as the 3D printers the team used to build their first prototype.  

“It all prepared me for what to expect as a medical and health-technology founder.”  

As for next steps, Zarabadi is excited by the work AiimSense is doing and the progress they are making on the transition from preclinical to the clinical trial stage.  

“There is more work ahead, but in the end, what motivates me the most is knowing that my work is going to help people to access medical imaging regardless of their socio-economic status.”  

IST merges two internal groups to create new Information Systems team

A message from Bruce Campbell, Chief Information Officer (CIO).

Information Systems & Technology (IST) has re-organized its Enterprise Resourcing Planning (ERP) and Departmental and Campus Applications (DCA) groups, merging the two and creating a new group called Information Systems (IS). The new Information Systems group brings together both enterprise and departmental information systems under one umbrella, in addition to IST’s data, integrations and analytics team, and the web development (WCMS) team. The leadership of the new group consists of a director and six managers, who continue in their same roles.

I am pleased to announce that Greg Smith has assumed the role of Director, Information Systems as of December 1, 2022. Greg was most recently the Director of IST’s Departmental and Campus Applications group (since 2017) and has served as interim director of the Enterprise Resource Planning group since June 1, 2022.

Strong partnerships, both within IST and across campus, will allow Information Systems to bring a comprehensive approach to leading new campus-wide information systems initiatives, while continuing to provide long-term systems management, business and systems analysis, and custom software development for the campus community. The strategic data needs of the campus, including the Data as a Strategic Resource program, will also be supported by this new group. I encourage you to connect with Greg should you have any questions about how the Information Systems group could support the ongoing efforts of your team. 

EARTH: Contact lens study on ocular allergies

A message from the Centre for Ocular Research & Education (CORE).

The Centre for Ocular Research & Education is seeking participants aged 18+ who wear contact lenses and experience allergies and itchy eyes for a study to investigate whether a new contact lens that contains a medication to help with ocular allergies will provide a better quality of life compared to a lens that does not contain medication.

Participants will compare the severity of symptoms of itching between two daily disposable lenses after two weeks of wear.

This study will include 4 in-clinic visits over 4 days (total = 5 hours). All study products will be provided. In appreciation of your time, you will receive $100 upon completion. Parking passes will be provided as required.

Visit http://COREstudies.ca/EARTH for more info.

All studies conducted at CORE have been reviewed and received ethics clearance through a University of Waterloo Research Ethics Board.

If you’d like to be considered for other CORE studies, please create a participant profile and we will contact you based on eligibility: https://prescreen.uwaterloo.ca.

Joint Legal Studies Seminar Focuses on Animals and War

This article was originally posted on the St. Jerome's University website.

On Tuesday, December 13, 2022, the Departments of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo and St. Jerome’s University are hosting the next seminar in the Joint Legal Studies Seminar series. The series features biannual seminars showcasing a range of legal studies scholarship. The upcoming seminar will take place online and feature Katy Sowery, PhD, speaking on the topic of Forgotten Casualties or Companions: Animals and War. 

Katy Sowery, PhD is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Liverpool. Her work looks at the status of animals in legal systems – on a national and transnational level. Her work focuses on the ‘duality’ prevalent in the legal regulation and legal status of animals; as ‘sentient’ beings and as ‘products.’ In the upcoming lecture Sowery will address what happens to animals affected by armed conflict in keeping with societal and cultural value placed on them looking at the hierarchical understanding of different types and categories of animals in the particular context of war.

“This talk will be a perfect way to end 2022 - a year when both war and our relationships with the natural world have been at the forefront of our minds,” said Honor Brabazon, Associate Professor in SJU’s Sociology and Legal Studies department and a member of the seminar’s organizing group.

To register your participation for this online Zoom event taking place at 10:00 a.m., please use the following link.

For more information about this event or the series, please contact Honor Brabazon at honor.brabazon@uwaterloo.ca, Allison Chenier at achenier@uwaterloo.ca, or Andrea Quinlan at andrea.quinlan@uwaterloo.ca.