Thursday, November 5, 2026

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• United College names next Chancellor

• Turning the body's own cells into better medicine

• Clouds on a lava planet challenge what astronomers expected

• Waterloo’s Wild Writers Literary Festival returns for its fifteenth anniversary

United College names next Chancellor

This article was originally published on Waterloo News.

United College, located at the University of Waterloo, has named Judge Albert Wong, a retired lieutenant commander in the Canadian Armed Forces and a Waterloo alum recognized for exemplary service to the country, as its next Chancellor.

Judge Wong, a citizenship judge who earned a degree in kinesiology from Waterloo (BSc ‘80), received an honorary Doctor of Laws in 2025 for dedicating his career to fostering social cohesion.

“Judge Wong exemplifies United College’s commitment to relationship-building and to social justice. He has dedicated his professional career to strengthening communities and has extensive experience in bringing people together for social good,” said Dr. Tracy Penny Light, President of United College. “His enthusiasm for the College’s mission, as well as his personal alignment to our values, make him a wonderful fit for the role of Chancellor.”

Judge Wong immigrated to Canada in 1971 and joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1976. During his 40-year career in the military, he was a top public-affairs professional, working on issues of national security and emergency management. He also served on peacekeeping missions in Eritrea and Ethiopia, in addition to being a member of the Canadian Strategic Advisory Team that supported President Hamid Karzai and his cabinet in strengthening government services in Afghanistan. Since becoming a citizenship judge in 2014, he has sworn in more than 300,000 new Canadians.  

Judge Wong is also highly involved in community volunteerism, holding roles including Chair of the Mississauga Board of Chinese Professionals and Businesses and a member of the Senate of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (Princess Louise's), an infantry unit of the Canadian Army Reserve.

In recognition of his service, Judge Wong has received numerous awards, including the Canadian Forces’ Decoration, the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee and Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medals, the 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal, the United Nations Mission in Eritrea and Ethiopia Medal, and the Canadian Peacekeeping Service Medal.

“I believe that United College’s commitment to bringing students together to live, learn and engage with social issues is so critical. Throughout my career, I’ve witnessed how collaboration and education can build strong, connected communities,” Judge Wong said. “The College plays a vital role in shaping futures, strengthening communities and making a meaningful impact in the world. I am truly honoured to be selected to serve as its next Chancellor.”

As Chancellor, Judge Wong will serve as an ambassador for United College, representing the College at ceremonial and official events, and as a member of its Board of Governors.

He was elected by the Board of Governors for a three-year term. His installation ceremony will take place in January 2027.

Turning the body's own cells into better medicine

This article was originally published on Waterloo News.

The University of Waterloo welcomes Dr. Ruibing Wang as an Eddie Goldenberg Research Chair in Supramolecular Biomaterials. Wang, currently a professor of supramolecular pharmaceutics and biomaterials at the University of Macau, will join the Faculty of Engineering in April 2027.

He joins Dr. Talia Bettcher and Dr. James Wolffsohn as one of three chairs appointed to Waterloo through the Government of Canada program. Here, he will build a research program that moves discoveries from the lab to real-world use while training the next generation of scientists and entrepreneurs.

Wang has published more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, been cited more than 16,000 times, and has been listed among Stanford University’s World’s Top 2 per cent of Scientists every year since 2020.

Read the full Q&A with Dr. Wang

Clouds on a lava planet challenge what astronomers expected

 This article was originally published on Waterloo News. 

A rocky lava planet once thought to be too extreme to have an atmosphere appears to be wrapped in one with a reflective layer of vaporized silicate mineral clouds, the same family of compounds that make up quartz and sand.

University of Waterloo Physics and Astronomy Professor Lisa Dang and collaborators used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe the lava planet TOI-561 b for 37 hours, capturing nearly four complete trips of the planet around its star.

“We measured how the planet’s brightness and heat changed throughout its orbit,” says Dang. “This technique, known as a phase curve, revealed that the planet reflects a significant amount of light from its star, and that heat is being redistributed around the planet instead of only on the sunlit side. Together, these point to the presence of an atmosphere.”

The first study found the dayside was far cooler than expected for a bare, dark rock this close to its star. That missing heat could either be carried around to the night side or reflected away before the planet ever absorbed it. By watching the full orbit, the team got the first look at the night side, which always faces away from the star, and found it isn’t warm enough to account for the difference. Instead, TOI-561 b must reflect roughly three-quarters of the starlight that hits it, comparable to Venus.

To explain this brightness, the team compared the observations with a computer simulation of the planet’s climate. These suggest that clouds made of silicate minerals, including silicon dioxide (SiO2) and magnesium silicate (MgSiO3), could form on the planet’s dayside and act like sunscreen. By reflecting starlight and keeping the planet cooler, the clouds may help the planet hold onto an atmosphere that would otherwise be stripped away.

The results build on earlier evidence by Dang and collaborators that TOI-561 b possesses a thick atmosphere, likely replenished by gases released from its molten interior.

What that atmosphere is made of remains an open question. It could be a dense blanket of carbon dioxide, like a much hotter version of Venus, or it could be rich in sulfur dioxide, a gas released from Jupiter’s volcanic moon. The planet has an ocean of molten rock covering its surface, which could act as a planet-wide volcano that is constantly feeding its atmosphere.

“The next big question we will seek to answer is whether TOI-506 b’s atmosphere resembles Venus or an extreme lo," says Dang. "Observing the planet at longer wavelengths with JWST could give us insights and help explain how a planet this hot has held on to an atmosphere for billions of years.”

The paper’s first author, Samuel Boucher, began the project as an undergraduate research intern at the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets, where Dang was a Banting Postdoctoral Researcher at the time. She continued supervising him after joining Waterloo as a professor, and the internship project grew into a published JWST study.

The paper, “A Highly Reflective Atmosphere on the Lava World TOI-561 b Revealed by JWST/NIRSpec Phase Curve,” was published in The Astronomical Journal.

Waterloo’s Wild Writers Literary Festival returns for its fifteenth anniversary

 A message from St. Jerome’s University 

This weekend, the Wild Writers Literary Festival returns to Waterloo for three days of award-winning and emerging Canadian writers, workshops, conversations, and community. 

Presented by The New Quarterly (TNQ), in partnership with the Balsillie School of International Affairs and Words Worth Books, Wild Writers has spent 15 years creating a space in Waterloo Region where people can encounter extraordinary Canadian writers and connect with other readers. Based on the Waterloo campus in St. Jerome’s, TNQ is a national literary magazine publishing Canadian fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction for 45 years.  

From November 6 to 8, this year's festival brings together a wide range of Canadian voices and perspectives, with programming that explores questions of identity, belonging, publishing, creativity, and the experiences that shape our stories. Highlighted sessions include, Fierce Women: Mothers and Other Silent Geniuses, Displacement and Identity, and How to Query / Get Published in the Age of AI, alongside Telling a Story with Collage and Poetry Masterclass and writing workshops in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. 

The 2026 festival features writers whose work is receiving national attention, including Ashraf Zaghal, shortlisted for the 2026 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and Hollay Ghadery, longlisted for the 2026 Giller Prize. Both writers will participate in the festival's Displacement and Identity panel. 

Wild Writers featured a pre-festival event with Tara Gereaux at United College, who is TNQ's upcoming Spirit Ink Writer in Residence – an initiative to support Indigenous writers and writing. Gereaux is shortlisted for the 2026 Giller Prize. 

Together, this reflects Wild Writers' longstanding goal: to bring new voices and celebrated Canadian writers into conversation with audiences in Waterloo Region. 

Explore the full program and purchase tickets today!