Wednesday, May 13, 2026

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• Student design team to redesign Jeep Cherokee hybrid in international competition
• Inaugural Balsillie Survey identifies obstacles on Canada's path to tech sovereignty
• Remembering former Vice-President, University Research Paul Guild
• Volunteer for You @ Waterloo Day and other notes

Student design team to redesign Jeep Cherokee hybrid in international competition

Hilus Kevy, a third-year computer engineering student and UWAFT team member, and Dr. Roydon Fraser, UWAFT's faculty advisor, pose with Waterloo's Jeep Cherokee at the EcoCAR Innovation Challenge launch event in April.

This article was originally published on the Faculty of Engineering website.

A Waterloo Engineering student design team has been selected as one of 20 universities across North America to compete in the EcoCAR Innovation Challenge, the next 4-year installment of the Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions series.

The University of Waterloo Alternative Fuels Team (UWAFT) is one of only two Canadian universities chosen and the only Canadian team in the Stellantis track, where they will work with a 2026 Jeep Cherokee hybrid.

Managed by Argonne National Laboratory and sponsored by the United States’ Department of Energy (DOE), General Motors, Stellantis and MathWorks, EcoCAR is the fifteenthinstallment of the DOE’s Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions series. It challenges student teams to redesign and re-engineer real vehicles using emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, machine learning and model-based design.

UWAFT will focus on reimagining the Cherokee's propulsion system, developing high-voltage battery solutions and integrating advanced software tools, including autonomous features, to balance off-road capability, efficiency, mobility and safety.

"Tomorrow's mobility solutions will be shaped by teams who can take on real-world challenges, innovate across disciplines and provide practical, intelligent results for our customers," said Micky Bly, Stellantis’s senior vice president of global propulsion systems engineering, in a media release. "EcoCAR gives students that experience, and we're excited to support their development by providing the 2026 Jeep Cherokee hybrid."

"The hands-on experiential learning provided by EcoCAR is simply unmatched,” said Dr. Roydon Fraser, a mechanical and mechatronics engineering professor and UWAFT faculty advisor. “Using state-of-the-art technology, coupled with a high level of industry mentoring, hundreds of both graduate and undergraduate students will be trained to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow, whether or not they go into the automotive industry.”

The competition runs from 2026 to 2030.

Inaugural Balsillie Survey identifies obstacles on Canada's path to tech sovereignty

A message from the Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA).

Canada’s path to technology sovereignty requires a fundamental shift from being a nation that invents for the world to one that can build for itself, protect its creations, and support domestic procurement and competition, according to the Balsillie Survey, a survey of Canada’s technology governance conducted by the Balsillie School of International Affairs. The survey was developed with the assistance of graduate and PhD students at the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University.

Paul Samson, President, Centre for International Governance Innovation; Mary Wells, Dean of Engineering, University of Waterloo; and Mary Thompson, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Statistics, University of Waterloo and founding Co-Director of the University of Waterloo Survey Research Centre offered advisory support for this inaugural Balsillie Survey.

Read the full news release for more information about the survey’s findings.

Remembering former Vice-President, University Research Paul Guild

This article was originally published on the Faculty of Engineering website.

The Department of Management Science and Engineering and the Faculty of Engineering are mourning the loss of a longtime colleague and scholar.

Dr. Paul Guild, professor emeritus in the Department of Management Science and Engineering, passed away on April 24, 2026, at the age of 80. An alum of the University of Waterloo, Guild spent more than three decades at the University he had once studied at, leaving a lasting mark on research, innovation and the careers of countless students.

Guild joined Waterloo as a professor in 1990, bringing with him extensive senior management experience from Bell Northern Research. He quickly established himself as a leading voice on the management of technological innovation and entrepreneurship, holding the CIBC/Nortel/NSERC-SSHRC Chair in Management of Technology Change and serving as director of the Institute for Innovation Research from 1996 to 2015. He also served as vice-president, university research from 2001 to 2005. His research focused on managing technology for product differentiation in global markets and understanding what future users will want, value and accept from new products and services.

Outside of his academic life, Guild was known for his warmth and enjoying the company of others — whether spending weekends with his grandchildren, watching football or restoring his Morgan car. He is survived by his spouse, Inta; his children, Emma and Jesse; and his grandchildren, Audrey, Millie, Alexander and Eden.

"Paul meant a great deal to our department and the broader Waterloo community,” said Dr. Mark Hancock, chair of the Department of Management Science and Engineering. “I first got to know Paul when I started at Waterloo in 2010, and he was always very supportive of me in my early career; he exemplified what it means to be a very kind and caring colleague."

Guild's influence extended well beyond his own research. Among the many students he mentored was Dr. Jagdeep Singh Bachher, chancellor of the University of Waterloo, who completed his PhD under Guild's supervision.

"Paul Guild changed the direction of my life with a single piece of paper on the day I met him,” said Bachher. “This tall, stately gentleman — always calm, always inspiring, always innovating — handed me a column from Harvard Business Review about a new kind of investor. He asked if I'd be interested in studying their entrepreneurial way of sizing up the world. That question morphed into my life's work.

"I came to Waterloo for one degree and stayed for three because of Paul. I'm chancellor today because of Paul. A great teacher can set you off in a direction you never knew you had in you. He did that for me, and for so many others."

Volunteer for You @ Waterloo Day and other notes

"Volunteer to help welcome prospective students to campus for You @ Waterloo Day on Saturday, May 23!" says a note from Marketing and Undergraduate Recruitment (MUR). Volunteering at this event is a great way to meet new people, plus you'll receive a t-shirt, pizza lunch, and be entered to win one of three $50 W Store gift cards! Learn more and sign up.

Students are invited to peruse the offerings at the Campus Life Fair in the SLC Great Hall today from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. WUSA clubs and services will be represented, as well as student societies and other student-facing administrative units, all there to show the depth and breadth of student supports available on campus. 

Employers hosting Employer Information Sessions this week and next week include Leap Tools, Ernst & Young, Definity, Hydro One, Bioped Footcare, Bloomberg, and Cresta Intelligence. For the week of May 18, ArchES Computing Systems, Formlabs, Charta Health, Glasslake Funding ULC, ZIP, and Microsoft will be conducting info sessions.

Register if you plan to attend through the Employer Information Sessions calendar on WaterlooWorks and check for any updates and more to come this term./