Tuesday, May 26, 2026

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• Waterloo women recognized at 2026 Oktoberfest Women of the Year Awards

• Share your well-wishes and attend Vivek Goel's celebration event on June 3

• Rhetoricon Symposium: figuring constructions and constructing figures

• Convocation ambassadors needed!

• Bike registration rallies this week and other notes

Waterloo women recognized at 2026 Oktoberfest Women of the Year Awards

Dr. Sirisha Rambhatla, Nadine Quehl, Dr. Donna Strickland, Saba Oji and Dr. Mary Robinson.

By Sam Charles. This is an excerpt of an article originally published on Waterloo News.

The University of Waterloo community was strongly represented at the 2026 Kitchener Waterloo Oktoberfest BMO Women of the Year Awards, with alumni, faculty, staff and community partners recognized among both winners and nominees.

The annual awards celebrate women who are advancing Waterloo Region through leadership, innovation and service. Now in its sixth decade, the program highlights contributions across fields including STEM, education, health, entrepreneurship, arts and culture and community engagement. More than 90 nominees were recognized this year, many with direct or indirect ties to the University of Waterloo.

Among the winners, several are deeply connected to Waterloo through research, teaching and community impact. Dr. Donna Strickland, a Professor in the Faculty of Science and Nobel Prize-winning physicist, was honoured in the STEM category for her continued global leadership in optical physics and her advocacy for women in science. Nadine Quehl, Senior Manager of Knowledge Mobilization and Partnerships at Waterloo, was recognized in health and wellness for her work bridging academic research with community and health system partners.

In the educator category, Dr. Mary Robinson (BASC ’02, MASC ’10), a chemical engineering alum and Professor in the Faculty of Engineering, was honoured for her commitment to student-centred learning and innovation in engineering education. In the Vanguard category, Dr. Sirisha Rambhatla, Professor in the Faculty of Engineering, was recognized for advancing ethical and transparent artificial intelligence, while PhD student Saba Oji (BSc’18) was celebrated for her work at the intersection of public health, artificial intelligence and mental wellness.

The awards also recognize community leadership and contributions beyond campus. Amanda Amaral, recipient of the arts and culture award, has a connection to the University through volunteer work that supports campus and community initiatives. Lucia Harrison, recognized in community service, has ties to Conrad Grebel University College, while lifetime achievement recipient Judy Nairn has contributed to governance at St. Jerome’s University. Both institutions are affiliated with Waterloo.

Across all categories, the presence of Waterloo-affiliated nominees and recipients underscores the University’s role as a hub for talent, research and community collaboration. From emerging student leaders to internationally recognized scholars, those connected to Waterloo continue to shape the social, economic and cultural fabric of the region.

Read the full list of Waterloo nominees on Waterloo News

The University of Waterloo congratulates all of this year’s winners and nominees whose achievements demonstrate the power of curiosity, collaboration and community impact.

Share your well-wishes and attend Vivek Goel's celebration event on June 3

A message from University Communications.

As President Vivek Goel approaches the end of his term as our seventh president and vice-chancellor, we invite you to recognize his leadership and the impact of this chapter in Waterloo’s history.

Join the celebration

A reminder that a celebration for the University community to come together and mark President Goel’s presidency will take place on Wednesday, June 3 at 3:00 p.m, on the BMH Green. Register for the event on Ticketfi.

Share your well-wishes

We invite members of the Waterloo community to share personal messages of thanks, reflection, or well wishes for Vivek.

Share your well-wishes today

Vivek's presidency has been defined by a deep commitment to advancing a bold, forward‑looking vision through Waterloo at 100 and the Global Futures. He strengthened cross-sector and community partnerships to address local and global challenges, worked with Indigenous elders and community members to advance truth and reconciliation across the University, and championed a sustainable and inclusive campus.

Learn more about President Goel’s leadership and impact on the Shaping Futures legacy website, featuring highlights from his presidency.

Rhetoricon Symposium: figuring constructions and constructing figures

A message from the Faculty of Arts.

Anyone interested in the many facets of language, from an academic, professional, or just a plain ain't-language-cool perspective is invited to join this week’s interdisciplinary Rhetoricon Symposium. The event brings together internationally renowned scholars of rhetorical stylistics (Jeanne Fahnestock) and construction grammar (Adele Goldberg and Laura Michaelis) with UW researchers in computational linguistics, rhetorical theory, and Machine Learning. It is hosted by our very own Randy Allen Harris (English), who was recently named University Professor, and Chrysanne Di Marco, Professor Emerita (Computer Science).

For non-experts, the symposium offers insight in how language shapes everyday communication, how meaning is created, and how tools like AI understand and generate text. There will be presentations and posters on Chinese figuration, AI ethics, Figure Detection, hyper-dimensional computing, first language acquisition, and language in cognitive decline.

These topics explore the intersection of figurative patterns, grammatical constructions, neurocognitive exemplar models, and Machine Learning, advancing the interdisciplinary framework pioneered at UW by Harris and Di Marco.

Harris runs long-term research project The Rhetoricon Database, which will be showcased at the symposium. It houses over 6,000 instances marked with multiple rhetorical figures (figures of speech), and a citizen-science game for harvesting more and more such instances, called GoFigure.

“The importance to the Rhetoricon project is multifold,” said Harris. “For rhetoric and linguistics, it demonstrates how figurative and grammatical patterns combine to produce nuggets of form and meaning that shape our understanding of the world and each other (easy come, easy go; what goes up must come down; cancel culture; live rent-free). For Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the traditional sense (modelling human thought), it computationally explores how brains store and retrieve language; therefore, ideas. For AI in the current sense (behemoth generative text and image devices), it has the promise of reducing the size and processing of these devices—therefore, of reducing their environmental impact—and bringing their reasoning more closely into line with human reasoning.”

Check out the Symposium programme (PDF).

Register for the Symposium.

Convocation ambassadors needed!

A message from the Office of Advancement.

Spring Convocation takes place from Tuesday, June 16 to Saturday, June 20, and we are seeking staff ambassadors, with a particular need on Saturday, June 20. Serving as a convocation ambassador is a rewarding way to give back, connect with colleagues, and help create memorable experience for our newest alumni.

Those who have participated before know how uplifting it is to witness graduates cross the stage and begin the next chapter of their journey.

Join us to experience some Waterloo joy! Visit the convocation website to learn more or register.

Bike registration rallies this week and other notes

Project 529 Bike Registry registration rallies will take place on Tuesday, May 26 and Thursday, May 28, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. outside UWP.

"Let’s end bike theft!" says a note from Sustainable Transportation. "Bring your bike to register it for free and get a free 529 Shield."

"There’s no one path into science," says a note from the Faculty of Science. "We asked our students to complete the statement 'You belong in science if…' and their answers are a reminder that curiosity, passion, and a sense of discovery all belong here."

"Thank you to Abeera Naseem, Victor Sae-Chua, Nayla Qureshi, Angel Priya, Preksha Shah, Kavya Desai, Mylena Hail, Tiffany Chan, and Remi Juby for helping show what belonging in science can look like."

The next CareNext Collective event, "What actually works in AI-enabled care," takes place on Wednesday, May 27, from 12 noon to 1:00 p.m. online. "As patients increasingly use AI in their health care, it's important to understand what happens when that reality meets clinical practice," a note from the organizers says. "As clinicians and patients both engage with these tools, new dynamics are shaping how care is delivered and experienced. What actually works in practice, and what gets used?"

Speakers include Danina Kapetanovic, Vice-President, Innovation and AI Strategy and Chief Health Innovation Officer, Dr. Joshua Liu and Ellyn Winters-Robinson.