Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Training the next generation of genome scientists: learning through osmosis

This is an excerpt of an article originally published on Waterloo Stories.

When the first complete genetic blueprint for human beings was completed in 2003, the door opened to major advances in the fields of medicine, biotechnology and the life sciences.

Students from the University of Waterloo contributed to this ground-breaking project and continue to make profound scientific contributions through co-op work terms at The Centre for Applied Genomics (TGAC). TCAG, affiliated with the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, provides co-op students with training in relevant laboratory and analytical techniques.

“There are so many examples of significant impacts that Waterloo students have had on our work,” says Richard Wintle, assistant director of TGAG. “We've had students work on new machine learning methods for understanding the human genome. We've had students verifying and validating findings in our autism genomic study. We've even had students stretching all the way back into the early years of the Human Genome Project, working on the annotation of human chromosome seven, and many of these have resulted in high impact publications and real advancements in the field.”

These exceptional co-op work experiences have led to TCAG being named the first-ever winner of the Impact in Research award. This accolade is part of the University of Waterloo Co-operative and Experiential Education (CEE) Employer Impact Awards.

“As director of the Work-Learn Institute, I’m excited to see an employer like the Centre for Applied Genomics provide such rich and purposeful research programs for Waterloo students – especially ones that include student contributions to research papers and academic journals,” says Judene Pretti. “Through these work experiences and opportunities, our students get to mobilize knowledge that will shape them into research professionals with global impact.”

“We’re very pleased to be able to contribute to improving and enhancing the number of genome scientists in Canada,” says Wintle. He says the skills they learn are critical to success in the field of genomics in both the public and private sectors.

TGAC, which consistently hires Waterloo co-op students and alumni, encourages student involvement in academic journals and publications to share and highlight their work and discoveries.

“Waterloo students help us to be more future-proof in that we can use the program to identify students who might be good employees later,” says Wintle. “Of course, many of these students go on to have their own successful medical or research careers and some of them become long-term collaborators at our Centre.”

Students are offered a vibrant, productive genome community with mentorship and support from highly experienced research experts, informatic teams, lab personnel, genomics analysts and PhD and co-op students from other institutions.

“We strongly believe that important work needs to be acknowledged appropriately,” says Wintle. “One way we can do that is by making sure that our students are offered co-authorship on papers where they’ve contributed significantly to the work that’s being reported. It’s also very important for their own development, because co-authorship on an important paper is really a good way to demonstrate employers or future graduate supervisors that they’ve done some really good work.”

Read the rest of the article on Waterloo Stories.

The talk of the President's Town Hall

More than 800 people attended the President's Virtual Town Hall Meeting on Thursday, October 29, engaging via livestream to hear President Feridun Hamdullahpur give an update on the University and engage in a discussion about key issues facing our institution in 2020 and beyond.

"I am tremendously grateful to all of you, our staff, faculty members and students, for your perseverance, your determination that we will make it work," President Hamdullahpur said, referencing how the University has had to adapt its service offerings during the pandemic. "And we have...We wouldn’t be here having this conversation without your understanding, cooperation, perseverance and taking ownership of this issue with all of us."

In his presentation, President Hamdullahpur talked about the University’s enrollment situation and the co-operative employment rate, pledging to bring co-op employment rate back to pre-pandemic level, and gave a quick overview on the financial health of the University as well as an update on the institution's antiracism activities. President Hamdullahpur also cited a robust plan to welcome international students back to campus that is currently under review by the federal government.

Vice-President, University Relations Sandra Banks acted as host and moderator of the live Q and A portion of the meeting, which featured questions sent in advance during registration, and questions asked live in the Microsoft Teams chat stream.

Question topics included work-from-home issues for employees, international student travel, diversity and inclusion considerations in hiring and promotion, improving conditions for graduate students, anti-racism initiatives, and co-op student employment rates.

"It’s been an incredibly challenging ride at times, at times a rough ride, at times exhilarating," President Hamdullahpur said in reference to the events of 2020 and their impact on the University. "I am grateful for my colleagues, and I mean that, my vice-presidential colleagues, my decanal colleagues, and everybody...we grabbed this big bloody bull by the horns and said, 'we aren't going to let you push us away and we are going to handle this.'" 

Answers to the questions that were posed to the President and the University's senior leadership will be added to the President's Town Hall website. Participants who sent questions in advance will be receiving an email with their answer from the townhall@uwaterloo.ca email account.

Launch of new student course perceptions survey postponed

A message from the Waterloo Student Course Perceptions (WSCP) team.

Given the complexity of the current teaching environment, Deans Council and the Faculty Relations Committee have agreed that the launch of the new Waterloo Student Course Perceptions (WSCP) instrument should be delayed until the majority of instructors are back to teaching courses in person, on campus.

The WSCP team is pleased with this decision. The response to our recent update was one of overwhelming support, along with some concern about the proposed plan to launch the new student course perception instrument in this academic year.

As an institution, we are facing unprecedented circumstances that could not have been anticipated and that are continually changing, forcing us to adapt as necessary. We understand that teaching courses remotely poses new difficulties and challenges institutionally, for students and instructors alike.

One of the advantages of delaying the launch of the new instrument is that the WSCP team will have more time to connect with the campus community as it continues its work, including the following: 

• Development of a second tier of questions focused on Faculty-specific concerns. We have already begun this consultation process, and the work will continue over the coming months with the aim of completing this process by the time we are ready to launch, so that the second-tier questions can be pilot tested
• Development of user guides for instructors and administrators, including Chairs and those on tenure and promotion committees
• Development of educational materials for students  
• Consultations with various interest groups on campus
• Comparative analysis between old metrics and the 2018 pilot test
• Continued collaboration with the Complementary Teaching Assessment Project Team (CTAPT) as part of the University’s project to develop methods that ensure that teaching effectiveness at Waterloo is understood and assessed holistically 

Questions and concerns can be directed to Sonya Buffone, project manager and senior research associate: sonya.buffone@uwaterloo.ca.

'Tis the season for the Christmas donation project and other notes

“The University Christmas Project has been run through Co-operative Education since the 80s," writes Christian Girodat, employment relations assistant. "Departments, units or individuals across campus take on families to sponsor. We get our list of children from the Region of Waterloo's Home Care Services. They have provided us with a list of over 200 children from working poor families in our region." 

"For each child we are given a list of clothing that is needed and toys they would like, Girodat continues. "We are still looking for individuals or units to take on families in need. We still have 70 children without a sponsor. We ask that donations be wrapped and labeled with the child's name or family number, and that all gifts be contained in a box for bag that has the family number printed on it to align with our COVID-19 safety measures."

Sponsors will be able to schedule time slots to drop off their gifts to the Tatham Centre. Drop-offs will occur on December 11 and 12. Anyone interested in sponsoring a child is invited to please reach out to Christian Girodat by email to ceedco44@uwaterloo.ca.

The University of Waterloo Retirees Association is hosting a Zoom presentation by Dr. Stuart McGill entitled "Back Pain as we Ripen Into Older Adults" on November 18 at 2:00 p.m.

Dr. McGill is a retired faculty member of Applied Health Sciences, an Order of Canada recipient and international expert on back biomechanics and back pain.

More information on the presentation and Dr McGill can be found in the Events section of the UWRA website: https://uwaterloo.ca/retirees-association/events. Advance registration is required for this event and can be completed on the event website. Registrants will receive an email with a link to join the event on November 18.

Information Systems & Technology (IST) has announced that the single sign-on certificates for Webex updated previously scheduled for today will now be updated on Tuesday, November 10 from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. Anyone with questions or concerns can contact the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or 519-888-4567 ext. 44357.