Wednesday, July 8, 2026

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• Waterloo innovator transforms maritime security and surveillance
• Banting Postdoctoral Fellow joins Waterloo to advance exoplanet research

• Why every leader needs a geopolitical view of AI

Waterloo innovator transforms maritime security and surveillance

This is an excerpt from article that was originally published on Waterloo News.

As Canada looks to strengthen coastal surveillance while reducing emissions, a University of Waterloo-founded company is expanding into defence with a new class of high-performance, zero-emission boats. 

ENVGO, founded by Waterloo alum Dr. Mike Peasgood (BASc ’98, MASc ’04, PhD ’08), designs and builds electric vessels that use hydrofoiling technology to glide above the water's surface. The company recently announced a move into defence and public safety, positioning its vessels to support intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and security operations along Canada's vast coastlines.

With more than 240,000 kilometres of shoreline — the longest in the world — Canada faces growing demand for persistent, efficient maritime monitoring. ENVGO’s approach combines electric propulsion with autonomy and advanced sensing systems, offering a cleaner and potentially more cost-effective solution for agencies such as the Coast Guard and Navy. 

“Our designs for security and defence combine the speed and efficiency of hydrofoiling vessels with advanced autonomy and sensing capabilities to help organizations protect ports, harbours and coastlines,” Peasgood says. “What sets us apart is the ability to rapidly reach an area of interest … that’s where our experience building high-performance hydrofoils gives us a unique advantage.” 

The company's expansion builds on a core idea that began with the recognition of a fundamental gap in the marine sector. “I love my electric car experience because I never have to go to a gas station ... and the performance is amazing, but I didn't find any equivalent in the boating world,” he says. “Almost all new boats are still gas powered.”

Boats require significantly more power than cars due to the drag created by pushing a hull through water, which has slowed electrification across the sector. Rather than adapting conventional designs, ENVGO rethinks the problem entirely. 

“I wanted to create a better solution for high-performance electric boats,” Peasgood says. “It led to a whole different approach to boat design — a hydrofoiling boat — which uses a wing below the surface to lift the hull and fly over the waves.” 

Read the full story on Waterloo News.

Banting Postdoctoral Fellow joins Waterloo to advance exoplanet research

This article was originally published on the Faculty of Science's website.

Banting Postdoctoral Fellow Emily Deibert has joined the Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics to advance research on planets beyond our solar system. Amidst a three-year observational campaign with 219 hours of telescope time, she brings extensive data from a long-term survey that she leads at the Gemini South Observatory in La Serena, Chile.

The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship is among Canada’s most prestigious and competitive postdoctoral awards. Before coming to Waterloo, Deibert was a Gemini Science Fellow and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Gemini South Observatory, where she worked as part of the instrument science team for the observatory’s high-resolution optical spectrograph, GHOST.

“GHOST captures light from distant stars, which allows us to study the planets orbiting around them,” says Deibert. “Even small signals in our observations can tell us more about what these planets are made of and how they behave.”

These observations are helping to advance the study of ultra-hot Jupiters and other exoplanets (planets that exist outside our solar system). Ultra-hot Jupiters are similar in size to Jupiter but orbit extremely close to their host stars, resulting in atmospheres that can reach thousands of degrees.

“I’m interested in them because they’re puzzling to us,” says Deibert. “When exoplanets were first discovered, they challenged our understanding of how planets form. We wouldn’t expect such a large planet to form so close to its host star in such an extreme environment.”

A key driver of this research is the ability to track how exoplanet atmospheres evolve, which is made possible by recent advances in observational technology.

“Historically, we didn’t have a strong enough signal in our observations to examine fine details in these atmospheres, so we had to average data over time,” she explains. “But with newer instruments, we can now track how atmospheric signals change. For example, we study wind speeds in these atmospheres and can observe how they vary over time.”

During her time at Waterloo, she hopes to uncover the drivers of these changes while working closely with Professor Lisa Dang and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students. She is also a member of the NIRPS consortium, which operates an instrument on another telescope in Chile, where she will be travelling in August to conduct observations.

On top of her research schedule and international travel, Deibert still makes time for her longtime passion for writing. She began her undergraduate studies in English at the University of Toronto before an Astronomy 101 course took her on a journey through science.

She tapped into her passion for storytelling last year, publishing her first children’s novel, Bea Mullins Takes a Shot, a story about a seventh grader who joins her school’s hockey team and develops a crush on the team captain. Looking ahead, she hopes to merge her love of astronomy and storytelling by writing a children’s book that teaches young readers about space.

The Faculty of Science is proud to welcome Deibert to the Department of Physics and Astronomy and looks forward to her contributions in advancing exoplanet research.

Why every leader needs a geopolitical view of AI

This is an excerpt from an article that was originally published on WatSPEED's website.

Only a few years ago, executive conversations about artificial intelligence (AI) focused largely on automation, productivity, and experimentation. Today, leaders are asking much bigger questions.

How will AI reshape global competition? What does it mean for Canada's competitiveness? Who controls the infrastructure that powers AI? And how should organizations prepare as technology evolves faster than the policies designed to govern it?

These questions were the focus of The Fog of War: Geopolitics, AI, and Global Power, a recent WatSPEED webinar featuring internationally recognized experts Dr. Bessma Momani (University of Waterloo), Dr. Samantha Bradshaw (American University), and Dr. Sarah Shoker (University of California, Berkeley).

More than 750 professionals from government, industry, higher education, health care, financial services, and the nonprofit sector registered for the session, underscoring the growing demand for informed conversations about AI's broader implications for organizations, governments, and society.

Together, the discussion revealed three strategic shifts every leader must understand, offering a practical framework for thinking about AI beyond the headlines.

Read more about the event and discussion.