Thursday, March 12, 2026

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• You’re invited to the 2025 Co-op Student of the Year and Velocity Co-op Problem Awards ceremony

• A new digital home for capstone partner collaboration

• Waterloo research reshapes Paralympic vision impairment sport

• Announcing KIX 2026

• EdTech Sandbox hosts Teaching with Tech workshop

You’re invited to the 2025 Co-op Student of the Year and Velocity Co-op Problem Awards ceremony

A message from Co-operative and Experiential Education (CEE).

Each year, Co-operative and Experiential Education recognizes and celebrates exceptional students for making impactful contributions to employers during their co-op work terms.

Join us virtually or in person as we announce the Co-op Students of the Year and the Velocity Co-op Problem Award honourees at the ceremony. 

Join us for the ceremony on March 25 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.  Register today!

Learn first-hand about the impact of remarkable Waterloo co-op students!

A new digital home for capstone partner collaboration

By Angie Docking and Matthew King. This article was originally published on the Centre for Work-Integrated Learning website.

The Centre for Work-Integrated Learning has launched a centralized capstone hub on its website, giving faculty, departments, students and external organizations a single point of entry to find opportunities, submit projects and build collaborations across Waterloo's growing capstone ecosystem. 

Until now, capstone information has lived across departments and faculty websites, making it harder for community and industry partners to submit projects for consideration and harder for faculty members to connect their students with potential collaborators. The new hub addresses that directly.

"We’re creating a shared front door that helps students, faculty and partners find each other, spark ideas and build meaningful projects together," says Jamieson Cox, senior manager, WIL innovation and continuous learning. 

External organizations, including businesses, non-profits and government agencies, can submit a partner registration form to propose a project. The Centre for WIL will then work to match those partners with student groups, reducing the amount of coordination required on both sides. Students can browse available projects on the site and register their interest directly. The hub spans all faculties and is not limited to the interdisciplinary capstone (i-Capstone) course offered in previous terms.

The hub’s launch is the first tangible step in the Global Futures Initiative associated with creating Canada’s largest capstone ecosystem. From capstone projects to Waterloo’s acclaimed co-op and WIL programs, it’s never been easier for students, faculty and partners to collaborate and innovate together. 

Waterloo research reshapes Paralympic vision impairment sport

By Darren McAlmont. This is an excerpt of an article originally published on Waterloo News.

When Kristine Dalton (OD ’07, MSc ’10) first stepped into a meeting on Paralympic classification more than a decade ago, she had no idea it would change the trajectory of her career or the landscape of winter parasport.

Today, Dalton, a clinician‑scientist in the School of Optometry and Vision Science at the University of Waterloo, is preparing to travel to the 2026 Paralympic Winter Games in Italy to see her research put into action on the world stage.

Dalton’s work has driven the most significant overhaul in classification rules for vision‑impaired Nordic and alpine skiing in more than 30 years. Traditionally, athletes were classified based on static measures of visual acuity and visual field in their best eye — criteria originally adapted from the World Health Organization’s definitions of legal blindness. But these one‑size‑fits‑all standards didn’t reflect the realities of sports.

“Sports like alpine and Nordic skiing are incredibly dynamic,” Dalton says. “Athletes move fast, navigate changing light, and read subtle shadows in the snow. The old rules didn’t fully reflect what skiers actually need to see.”

Drawing on earlier work she had done developing a dynamic visual acuity test using moving letters, Dalton began collaborating with Para Snow Sports, now governed by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS).

Over several seasons, her team conducted extensive studies examining which aspects of vision are most important for performance in high‑speed winter sports. They evaluated contrast sensitivity, colour perception, motion perception, visual fields, and both static and dynamic acuity — all with both eyes open, reflecting how athletes compete.

The research unfolded in two major phases. First, Dalton and her collaborators carefully measured the vision and performance of elite Paralympic athletes in competition, using years of raw timing data to determine how impairments affected results and where meaningful class boundaries should fall. Then she and her team worked with sighted participants to simulate various levels of vision impairment and identify the point at which performance meaningfully declined, which is key evidence for setting eligibility thresholds.

The results were transformative. The new evidence led to a lowering of the minimum impairment criteria and an expansion of allowable visual fields in both sports. In practice, this means more athletes are now eligible to compete — something Dalton calls “one of the most exciting outcomes” of the project. The research also informed new sport‑class divisions designed to ensure fairer, more competitive racing.

“The goal is always to ensure that the best athlete wins, not the athlete with the least impairment," says Dalton. "Fair classification keeps sport competitive, keeps athletes motivated, and helps the sport grow.”

Read the full story on Waterloo News

Announcing KIX 2026

A message from the Knowledge Integration program.

KIX (n): Knowledge Integration eXhibition; a convergence of disciplines, teaching methods and creative minds in an interactive exhibition on topics related to Global Futures.

The students of the Copenhagen cohort in the Knowledge Integration program invite you to experience the culmination of their third-year design project: The Museum Course. After spending ten days in Copenhagen last spring, the students returned to Waterloo in September ready to implement some of the design features they examined on the trip. Working in teams to produce these exhibits has been a rewarding and unique experience for the class.

In building the exhibits, the students moved beyond the traditional projects and assignments typical of an undergraduate experience. The creation process allowed them to be self-directed and enabled the students to incorporate skills from many different disciplines. The result is an exhibition that showcases a knowledge of museums and their design and communication methods, as well as teamwork and dedication to something that is a little out-of-the-box.

Visit the exhibits and learn about:

• Connection Lost: Exploring empathy in online spaces
• Alone, Together:Restoring connection in a lonely community

In addition, this year the Exhibition includes ten senior honours projects—independent fourth-year research and design outcomes of the fourth year students in the Knowledge Integration program.  Topics range broadly and include designing educational tools to broaden students’ knowledge and skills, enhancing mental health and memory care, strengthening community engagement, expanding animal rights, and much more.

KIX exhibition dates (in St. Jerome’s Health and Wellness Gym, SJU):

• March 16 to 19, 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
• March 20, 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
• March 21, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Learn more about KIX and the Knowledge Integration program.

EdTech Sandbox hosts Teaching with Tech workshop

A message from the Office of the Associate Vice-President, Academic.

Teaching with Tech: A Practical ViewBoard Workshop for Active Learning is part of a series of sessions hosted as part of the EdTech Sandbox. The EdTech Sandbox provides a space to test and engage with emerging technology in educational settings. This is the first workshop in the series and will support instructors with gaining confidence and competence in using the technology available in the space.

This workshop introduces instructors to the interactive capabilities of ViewBoard Interactive displays and explores how these tools can enrich active learning in the classroom. Participants will have the opportunity to explore key features including infrared touch interaction, multi‑width pens, hand‑erase functionality, whiteboard and annotation tools such as the AI pen, and system functions casting and collaboration. Throughout the session, we will connect these technical skills to active learning strategies while highlighting ways the ViewBoard can support collaboration, formative assessment, multi‑modal teaching, and student‑generated content. By the end of the workshop, instructors will be equipped not only to operate the technology confidently but to integrate it intentionally into dynamic, learner‑centered instructional design.

The event takes place on Tuesday, March 24, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in LIB 329. Please register for the event through Go Sign Me Up.

Please note that to ensure the optimal engagement of all participants, we have capped the session at 24 participants. If you are unable to register for this session, rest assured that we are planning multiple offerings throughout the Spring term in preparation for the fall.