Monday, June 9, 2025

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• Get a sneak peek at the future of Waterloo’s campus
• From discovery to impact: Celebrating our PhD graduates
• $300,000 GSK Canada grant supports new initiative to advance vaccine access, delivery and education
• Senate meets today and other notes

Get a sneak peek at the future of Waterloo’s campus

By Sam Toman.

The University of Waterloo is embarking on a new Campus Plan. It is a long-term strategy for how our physical campus evolves to support our academic mission, sustainability goals, and student experience. 

On Wednesday, June 25, join us in the Student Life Centre multipurpose room from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. for a drop-in Open House marking the first significant public community engagement opportunity of Phase 2. 

You will get a first look at draft ideas and directions based on feedback from surveys, consultations, and the Phase 1 Open House. 

The event features interactive displays and opportunities to speak directly with the project team, including prime consultant Brook McIlroy. Topics include campus mobility, open space, housing, and recreation. 

No registration is required. Just drop by and be part of the conversation. 

Whether you are deeply engaged in campus planning or simply curious about what is coming next, this is your chance to help shape a shared vision for Waterloo’s future. 

If you’d like to stay informed on the Campus Plan and future engagement opportunities, please sign up.  

From discovery to impact: Celebrating our PhD graduates

This is an excerpt of an article that originally appeared on Waterloo News.

The path to earning a PhD is rarely straightforward. It demands not only intellectual depth through rigorous coursework and research, but also creativity, resilience and interdisciplinary thinking. 

Throughout their doctoral journey, candidates push the boundaries of conventional knowledge — developing innovative approaches to address some of the world’s most complex challenges. Their research opens new frontiers and contributes to solutions that can shape a healthier, more sustainable future. As we celebrate our PhD graduands at Spring 2025 Convocation, we invite you to learn more about a few of their stories as they prepare to cross the stage and step into the next chapter of their journey. 

Dr. Tasneem Alsayyed Ahmad, PhD in Philosophy

While pursuing a master’s degree in philosophy, I was introduced to feminist philopsophy and social epistemology and wanted to apply these ideas to contexts familiar to me.  

As a woman from a Muslim background, I noticed a troubling gap in scholarship on the topic since the literature was either Islamophobic or contained very strict and narrow views of Muslim women’s experiences. This motivated me to address the marginalization of Muslims in academic discourse.  

My doctoral research critically examined hijab debates and veiling practices with a focus on how these discourses are manipulated to marginalize Muslims. Specifically, I explored how both Western imperialist narratives and Islamic right-wing politics exploit hijab-related discourse, reinforcing colonial ideologies while obstructing solidarity among Muslim women.  

My work reveals how dominant narratives about the hijab silence diverse Muslim voices and perpetuate epistemic and social injustices. 

I chose the University of Waterloo to work specifically with my supervisor Dr. Jennifer Saul and was happy to find a department supportive of my focus on Islamophobia and gender. Having taken up a position as assistant professor at the University of Canada West, my goal is to grow as an educator, to challenge colonial knowledge and to continue my research on the social and epistemic oppression of marginalized groups.

Dr. Nicole Sandra-Yaffa Dumont, PhD in Computer Science

Six years ago, during my master’s degree, I started learning more about artificial intelligence (AI) at a time when the field was evolving quickly. While I found AI fascinating, I kept wondering, ‘What — if anything — do artificial neural networks reveal about real brains? Can we use models to reverse-engineer cognitive processes?’  

Those questions pulled me toward theoretical neuroscience, where my PhD research, under the supervision of Drs. Chris Eliasmith and Jeff Orchard, focused on building biologically plausible neural network models of spatial cognition. I was interested in how the brain represents space and the neural mechanisms behind navigation — and what those mechanisms can tell us about cognition more generally.  

I hope the findings of my research will not only advance our understanding of navigation in the brain but also push the field to rethink how we model cognition more broadly — from memory and planning to social behaviour.  

Looking ahead, I’ll be pursuing postdoctoral research since I would like to extend my expertise to understand how computations underlying spatial navigation may apply to other domains like navigating a social landscape.  

Read the rest of the PhD profiles on Waterloo News.

$300,000 GSK Canada grant supports new initiative to advance vaccine access, delivery and education

This article was originally published on the School of Pharmacy website.

The University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy hosted an exciting event on June 6, 2025, to celebrate the launch of the new Pharmacy Innovation in Immunization Research Collaborative (PIIRC) initiative supported by GSK Canada. The $300,000 grant will help improve access, delivery and education of vaccines to Canadians. We’re pleased to have welcomed members from GSK, professional pharmacy associations, the School, local media and the wider pharmacy community.

“Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians play a vital role within communities as immunizers and vaccine advocates,” says Nancy Waite, PIIRC co-founder and professor at the School of Pharmacy.  “With GSK’s support, PIIRC will serve as an innovation catalyst to advance pharmacy-based immunization strategies.”

We have seen that vaccines save lives – pharmacy teams have administered more than 20 million COVID-19 vaccines in Canada alone.  

PIIRC is dedicated to advancing the role of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in immunization efforts, improving patient and healthcare provider understanding of vaccines and increasing vaccine uptake nationwide. GSK’s funding will help train future pharmacists in immunization practices, grant wider access to pharmacy vaccine data, support design and testing of technology solutions and help launch new interdisciplinary collaborations.

“We’re proud to stand alongside the School in driving innovative, patient-centred immunization strategies that reflect our mission to get ahead of disease together and our commitment to doing what’s right for communities and for public health,” adds Michelle Horn, country medical director, GSK Canada.

PIIRC builds on valuable insights and strategies to drive positive change in vaccine delivery and education. Their efforts will expand the role of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, overcome barriers for underserved communities, address vaccine misinformation and trial pharmacy-based scalable solutions.

Read the full article on the School of Pharmacy website.

Senate meets today and other notes

The University's Senate meets today at 3:30 p.m. in NH 3407 and online via Zoom. Among the agenda items:

• A motion to approve the new graduate certificate in work-integrated learning, with related amendments to the graduate calendar, effective September 1, 2025;
• A motion to approve the Honours Bachelor of Medical Sciences (BMSci) program, in partnership with St. George's University (SGU) in Grenada, including new courses that will deliver SGU course content, and proposed regulation changes, effective September 1, 2026;
• A motion to approve the membership of Senate committees and councils for 2025-26 and delegate approval for any remaining or subsequent vacancies to the Senate Executive Committee;
• A motion to give second and final reading to the amendments to Senate Bylaw 2 effective September 1, 2025;

Senators will also hear a presentation from Dr. Marlee Spafford on the Waterloo Student Experience & Engagement (WatSEE) framework and a presentation from Scott Kline, the Academic Colleague for the Council of Ontario Universities (COU).

The full agenda and supporting documents are available on the Secretariat's website.

The Secretariat is reporting that the updated protocols for observing Senate meetings go into effect today, and will be in place for all future Board and Senate meetings.

"Access to view meetings will be expanded through use of open access live-streaming," says a note from the Secretariat. "A link to the live-stream will be posted to the Secretariat website on the day of the meeting. Visitors who wish to observe meetings in person will be required to register in advance by email as follows:

• By 12 noon on the day of Senate meetings - senate@uwaterloo.ca; and
• By 12 noon on the day before Board meetings - board@uwaterloo.ca.

"Visitors attending meetings in person will be required to sign-in upon arrival and may be asked to show government or university-issued identification before entering the meeting room," says the note from the Secretariat. "The above information is also posted to the Secretariat website, and readily accessible through our website landing page."

The Community Well-being Fruits and Veg Market is making its return to Engineering 7 in June and July, organized by the Faculty of Engineering's wellness program. There will be four markets on campus in the spring term - Wednesday, June 11 and Wednesday, June 18, and Wednesday, July 16 and Wednesday, July 30, from 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. (or while supplies last) on the first floor of Engineering 7 near the RoboHub. Engineering's Community Well-being team is partnering with a vendor at the St. Jacob Farmers' Market to bring fruits and vegetables to campus to address food insecurity. The cost is $10 for a bag of assorted produce.

The market is open to all members of the University of Waterloo and the Affiliated and Federated Institutions of Waterloo (AFIW).

With Convocation about to begin, graduating doctoral students, their graduate supervisor(s), and guests will be attending an invite-only complimentary dinner reception to commemorate their achievements tonight at Federation Hall from 5:30 p.m to 8:00 p.m.

Information Systems & Technology (IST) has published the latest post in the Atlassian Blog Series entitled Effective Documentation with Confluence: Templates, Macros, and Structure.