Monday, October 7, 2024

Heat protection infographics earn international recognition in Climate Creatives Design Challenge

By Harminder Phull. This article was originally published on Waterloo News.

The Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation’s (Intact Centre) ‘Heat Protection Infographics’ for houses and rental units, were commended in a recent international Climate Creatives Heat Waves design challenge. The infographics are included in the contest publications: ‘Heat Waves: The Climate Creatives Challenge’ compendium book and the Climate Creatives Video, which showcases all the winning entries. 

The Intact Centre, housed within the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo is a leader in sustainability research, education and innovation to benefit the environment, economy and society. The centre plays a pivotal role in developing guidance and mobilizing solutions that address climate-related extreme weather risk across Canada and enable a more resilient country. The Intact Centre works with homeowners, communities, all levels of government and businesses to reduce negative impacts from extreme weather events, including heatwaves, wildfires and flooding.  

“Heat-related illness and death are preventable,” states Caroline Metz, managing director, climate resilience and health, Intact Centre. “By putting protective measures in place before a heat wave occurs, tenants and homeowners can reduce undue suffering and health risks from heat – including negative social impacts, and heat-related illness and death. The Intact Centre’s heat protection infographics offer a ‘how to' guide, that can help residents and communities stay safe.”

The Heat Waves Design Challenge brought together experts from climate science and design to serve on the judging panel and identified novel ways of communicating the impacts of extreme heat and actions to protect people and communities. The initiative profiled meaningful communication strategies for those seeking more information and awareness, offering practical solutionsand emphasizing adaptation action rather than solely profiling the threat from heat waves. Sponsored by the Environmental Design Studio and Shade the U.K., the contest received entries from around the world.

“It is encouraging to see innovative work on extreme heat from around the world recognized in an international design competition. Communication is key to changing behaviours,” says Joanna Eyquem, managing director, climate-resilient infrastructure, Intact Centre. “It is not enough to identify what to do; the key challenge is to engage people in taking action to protect themselves as part of their everyday lives.”  

Receiving commendation in this prestigious international challenge is a significant accolade for the Intact Centre. It reaffirms the centre’s role in advancing climate resilience and emphasizes that effective communication on complex issues like extreme heat is not only possible, but essential. With a future characterized by irreversible climate warming, the Intact Centre remains committed to helping Canadians understand heat risk and implement protective measures that can safeguard health and well-being now, and in decades to come. 

Dr. Ladan Tahvildari elected to the IEEE Computer Society's Board of Governors

This article was originally published on the Electrical and Computer Engineering news site.

Congratulations are in order for electrical and computer engineering professor, Dr. Ladan Tahvildari. Tahvildari was recently elected to the Board of Governors of the IEEE Computer Society (IEEE CS) for a three year term beginning 1 January 2025.

The IEEE Computer Society is engaging computer engineers, scientists, academia, and industry professionals from all areas of computing. IEEE CS sets the standard for the education and engagement that fuels continued global technological advancement.

Dr. Tahvildari leads the Software Technologies Applied Research (STAR) Group at the University of Waterloo. Her research is in the areas of decision-making approaches for self-adaptive software systems including adaptive security, analyzing architectures to manage cloud applications, and scalable similarity search over big data.

Dr. Tahvildari is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics (IEEE). She has been an elected Member-at-Large (2016-2018) for the IEEE Technical Council of Software Engineering (TCSE), and the 2018 TCSE Awards Chair. She is currently a Member-at-Large of the IEEE Technical Activities Committee (TAC). She served for more than 10 years as Chair of the IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group, Kitchener-Waterloo Section. Professor Tahvildari is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

Open Access Week is coming up from October 21 to 25

A message from the Library.

The Open Access movement seeks to promote free and open online access to academic information, such as research articles and data. As portals to accessing information, libraries are key partners in the open access movement.  

This year the Library will be hosting a series of workshops throughout the week, highlighting some of the key supports the Library provides related to open access. Learn more and register for events on the Library website. 

Emergency Notification System test tomorrow

On Tuesday, October 8 at approximately 11:30 am, the new emergency notification system (ENS) provided by Regroup will be tested on a campus-wide basis for the first time. 

The test will include the following communications channels: 

• SMS/text 
• Email 
• X (formerly Twitter) 
• Regroup Mobile (safety app) 
• Desktop Alert 

Please ensure that you have: 

1. Downloaded Regroup Mobile to your device and follow the login and recommended settings steps. 

2. Ensured your cell phone number is up to date either in the app if you are staff, or in Quest if you are a student. 

3. Downloaded and installed the Desktop Alert tool onto your computer. 

If you have any questions about the upcoming test, or about how to make sure Regroup’s app and desktop alert are installed properly on your devices, email ens@uwaterloo.ca