Friday, February 3, 2023

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• T-shirt campaign supports a new bursary for Black or Indigenous student-athletes
• New discovery may be key to controlling chemical reactions
• Shaping the international student experience at Waterloo
• Grade 10 Family Night coming up this month
• Nine students take top prizes in provincial contest
• Friday's notes

T-shirt campaign supports a new bursary for Black or Indigenous student-athletes

A message from Athletics and Recreation.

A progressive group of University of Waterloo staff and students are using their voices and platforms to create change within the Waterloo network. The Alliance was established to create positive systemic changes for the University of Waterloo Black, Indigenous and Racialized community through recognition of, education towards, and action against racism. 

One way they’re striving for change is by supporting the new The Black or Indigenous Heritage Student-Athlete Bursary. This award recognizes the barriers that Black or Indigenous student-athletes can experience in sport and strive to assist in bridging financial gaps while pursuing academic degrees. The Alliance is seeking support by selling “We Are One” t-shirts. Shirts are available through the W Store for $29.99 plus tax. 20 per cent of the proceeds from sale of this shirt will support the Black or Indigenous Heritage Award. 

The artist, Trisha Abe, is a local KW artist and UWaterloo alumnus. Her works can be seen all across the province and the area including downtown Kitchener and St. Jacob’s market. Her work is influence by female portraiture and often represent people of diverse background. Trisha is a former student-athlete from UWaterloo. She studied science at UWaterloo and since graduation has delved into her creative outlets. 

T-shirts are available online from January 19 to February 19, 2023.

New discovery may be key to controlling chemical reactions

A new study published February 1 in Nature is changing our understanding of chemical reactions and overturning previous theoretical models by finding an unexpected resonance frequency during the reaction of two molecules.

Resonance is when one object vibrating at the same natural frequency as a second object forces that second object into vibrational motion.

This ground-breaking finding is the first time a resonance has been observed between two ultracold molecules and is a stepping-stone for researchers to learn about and control the molecules that comprise our universe.

“Resonances occur when vibrations at a specific frequency get preferentially amplified. For example, when a piano string gets hit by the hammer, it vibrates at a specific frequency based on the length and thickness, creating a musical note unique to that string,” said Dr. Alan Jamison from the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) and the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo. “Similar resonances occur in atoms, where very specific frequencies of energy create stronger than expected responses in the chemical systems.”

Previously predicted to be an impossibility, Jamison and his collaborators from the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) were able to observe resonant frequencies in a chemical reaction between two ultracold molecules. By cooling down sodium-lithium molecules to near-absolute zero temperatures, the team could control the reactions at a quantum level. Without such control, the unusual resonance would never have been noticed.

“These seemingly simple systems still have a lot of surprising complexity hiding inside – Schrödinger wrote down his equation 100 years ago, but we still can’t solve it for a four-atom system,” said Jamison. “We’re pushing the frontier of understanding complex quantum dynamics.”

The research team probed the four-atom transition state with a magnetic field over a range of one million milligauss, a unit of measurement for the magnetic field strength. Within this search region, the resonant frequency found was only 25 milligauss wide.

“It was like finding a needle in a haystack,” said Dr. Wolfgang Ketterle, a professor at MIT. “When the magnetic field was tuned to this specific frequency, the chemical reaction was dramatically sped up.”

The discovery of these resonances holds promise for future applications in controlling chemical reactions. For example, an enhanced resonance may one day steer a chemical reaction or promote the formation of a desired product which would be less favourably made under non-resonance conditions, opening a new avenue and investigation tool for guiding molecular reactions.

The study, A Feshbach resonance in collisions between triplet ground state molecules, by Jamison, Ketterle, Juliana Park, Yu-Kun Lu and Dr. Timur Tscherbul, was published in Nature on February 1, 2023.

Shaping the international student experience at Waterloo

A message from the International Student Experience (ISE) team.

What does it take to feel like a Warrior? According to Candace Brown, International Student Experience Manager in the Student Success Office (SSO), creating opportunities for international students to develop a strong sense of belonging at Waterloo is crucial.

"International students need ongoing support in navigating a new country, culture, processes and systems,” she says. “To feel like a Waterloo Warrior, students must have a strong community of peers, connect with supportive faculty and staff, develop a solid support system, and know where to go when they need help.”

To create these opportunities for connection, the ISE team in the SSO hosts a variety of events and workshops each term. Key events and accomplishments in 2022 include:

• 800 (353 undergraduate, 447 graduate) participants in the International Peer Community program, a 48% increase from 2021, with over 300 attendees at the annual fall bonfire on September 29, 2022.
• UWinterloo celebrating 13 years of connecting students during the month of December 2022 saw nearly 450 students, staff, and faculty registered for the pen pals program, a 9 per cent increase from 2021 and almost 400 (200 undergraduate, 182 graduate) students registered to receive weekly tips and tricks on thriving during a Canadian winter.
• An evening of festive cheer at the International Student Holiday Dinner on December 10. Held in partnership with the Graduate Student Association at Fed Hall, 263 (102 undergraduate, 163 graduate) international students enjoyed an evening of holiday dining and a live DJ playing all the best hits from around the world.

So, what can international students look forward to from the ISE team in 2023?

• Community building events and workshops with the International Peer Community;
• Monthly Breakfast Seminars hosted in collaboration with various campus services. Up next is a wellness seminar on January 28, and “Managing your Finances” on March 25;
• Canada Revenue Agency comes to campus on March 10 to support students in navigating the Canadian tax system; and
• Free swimming lessons to help international students and their families get ready for the summer months, provided in partnership with Athletics and Recreation.

If you’re interested in learning more about ISE programming, or want to collaborate on a future event or project, reach out to ise@uwaterloo.ca.

Grade 10 Family Night coming up this month

A message from the Registrar's Office.

Grade 10 students and their supporters are invited to learn more about applying to university and what they can do now to prepare. Our University experts will share information on topics like admissions and finances while current students will share what it was like to go from high school to university. Also sharing advice with these future university students is our keynote speaker, Professor Anita Layton from the Faculty of Mathematics. 

Grade 10 may seem a little early to be talking to students about their future plans, but they’ll soon be selecting courses for Grade 11 which will greatly influence their pre-requisites for university. This information will be helpful regardless of which universities or programs a student is interested in, and the main event will not focus on Waterloo’s faculties or academic programs, though students looking for this information will be able to connect with campus partners at our information fair or through a live Q&A if watching virtually. 

• Presentation: 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. (Humanities Theatre and Virtual Livestream);
• Information fair: 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. (In-person only, Hagey Hall Hub)

Grade 10 Family Night takes place on February 23, 2023. For details and to register, visit the Grade 10 Family Night website.

Nine students take top prizes in provincial contest

This article was originally published on the Engineering news site.

Waterloo Engineering students performed well at this year’s recent Ontario Engineering Competition (OEC) at Western University, with three first-place teams moving on to February's national contest.

Thirteen undergraduate engineering students placed within the top three in nine competitive categories. The first and second-place teams in each category will compete in the Canadian Engineering Competition, to be held at the University of Waterloo in February.

First place in the Senior Design category was won by mechatronics engineering students Melda Kiziltan, Shaheer Rana and Carson Bay.

Jacob Chateauneuf, Benjamin Beazley, Collin Bolt and Alexsa Laddaran, all mechanical engineering students, took first prize in the Innovative Design category.

And in the Re-Engineering category, management engineering students Omkaar Kamath and Omar Atwa finished first.

Third place was awarded to students Ella Uppal and Neil Kaus in Debate, and Anna Liebenberg and Shreshth Mehra in Innovative.

Each year, over 300 engineering students from universities across Ontario compete in OEC, a three-day event. Participating teams must first win their institution’s qualifying competitions to take part in OEC.

Friday's notes

Information Systems and Technology (IST) has provided an update regarding the Waterloo Studio relocation. The studio will be moving from EC5 to MC1088. Effective February 2, 2023, the following Studio services can be requested via waterloostudio@uwaterloo.ca:

• Multimedia editing station.
• Green/white and/or black screen studio recording. 
• A sound booth with podcast space.
• On-location bookings will continue to be available.

Anyone with questions or concerns is invited to contact Marcel David at mdavid@uwaterloo.ca. 

IST has also announced that Quest will be down for scheduled maintenance on Sunday, February 5 from 6:45 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and will be unavailable during the maintenance window. Additional upcoming maintenance shutdowns include:

• Saturday, February 11 from 4:45 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.;
• Saturday, February 25 from 6:45 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.; and
• Sunday, March 19 from 6:45 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.

Plant Operations reports that the construction fencing around the tunnel project between the University Club and the Lyle Hallman building is being fully removed this Friday.