Monday, February 28, 2022

Waterloo Experience (WE) Accelerate continues to provide a flexible, co-op work term credit for first-year students amid challenging times

By Matthew King and Namish Modi 

It has been one year since Co-operative and Experiential Education (CEE) identified the need to assist first work term co-op students searching for their first job.

As a solution, CEE launched a new work-integrated learning (WIL) program called Waterloo Experience (WE) Accelerate. The program began with a pilot in Spring 2021 for students whose job search was impacted by the economic challenges of the global COVID-19 pandemic. 

“The pandemic created unique and unexpected challenges for our students, and we are excited to introduce more flexible ways for them to upskill and engage in meaningful work-integrated learning,” says Dr. Norah McRae, Associate Provost, CEE.

Students who participated in the spring pilot of WE Accelerate are already seeing results from future-proofing their skills and the work experience they gained during the group projects.  

"If it weren't for WE Accelerate, I don't know if the co-op experience would have been as smooth as it was this time around," says Shaili Kadakia, a Mathematics student and WE Accelerate pilot participant. “I think the main thing employers are looking for when they're hiring students, and really anyone, is experience. Building a project with five other students and then working in a small company as part of WE Accelerate, I think that really helped me stand out and it gave me what I was missing.” 

The WE Accelerate program has been given the support of the Provost and Associate Deans to continue until the end of the 2022 calendar year. Learn more about WE Accelerate and a timeline of the program on the Associate Provost, CEE news story.

PhD grad wins research funding in her native Jordan

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

A doctoral alumnus of Waterloo Engineering has won an international award to continue her research on crop stress in her native Jordan.

Heba Alzaben, who earned a PhD in mechanical engineering in 2020, received the equivalent of about $15,000 through the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Young Talents Program in a region that includes Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and the Syrian Arab Republic.

Her research involves the use of thermal remote sensing to detect crop stress at an early stage, allowing farmers to reduce water and air pollution by using fewer chemicals.

“My research has the potential not only to help farmers save costs, but also to enable them to do agricultural work in a more environmentally friendly way,” she said.

Alzaben knew she wanted to be a scientist as a young teenager and was encouraged to study engineering by her civil engineer father.

After returning to Jordan following her studies in Waterloo, she has worked in academia to advance the research she pursued for her PhD.

The L’Oréal-UNESCO program identifies and rewards talented young female researchers in the life sciences and physical sciences.

Faculty of Environment launches Future Cities seminar series

The Faculty of Environment has launched the Future Cities Initiative to tackle the major challenges facing our cities with a focus on thinking differently about the city of 2050 and beyond.

Considering the climate crisis, sustainability, social equity, and the diverse set of systems and actors that shape the city, what should that city of the future be and how do we get there?

Join the conversation at the inaugural Future Cities Initiative Program seminar, entitled "The Future City Reimagined: Paths to Transformation." Attendees will learn more about this new initiative and engage with the panelists as they discuss perspectives on the future of our cities.

Please register for the event at the following link: Inaugural Future Cities Event Reservation. You will be asked to share your ideas about future cities as part of the registration. 

Note that this is an in-person event, proof of vaccination is required, and masks are mandatory.

Master's student Cheryl Lao receives 2022 Adobe Research Women-in-Technology Scholarship

This article was originally featured on the Cheriton School of Computer Science website.

Cheryl Lao, a master’s student at the Cheriton School of Computer Science, is one of 16 recipients across North America and one of four from Canada to receive a 2022 Adobe Research Women-in-Technology Scholarship. As a recipient of this prestigious award, she will receive $10,000 USD for education expenses and a year-long Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.

Each year since 2016, Adobe Research’s Women-in-Technology Scholarship program has recognized outstanding female undergraduate and master’s students in North American universities studying computer science, computer engineering, and closely related fields.

Cheryl began her master’s degree at Waterloo in September 2020, a thesis-based research program in which she is co-supervised by Professors Craig Kaplan and Daniel Vogel. She completed an Honours Bachelor of Science degree in computer science with high distinction at the University of Toronto in 2020.

“Congratulations to Cheryl on receiving this scholarship,” said Professor Vogel. “She is conducting an exciting master’s project that combines human–computer interaction studies with computer graphics research. Her work, which is both technically ambitious and visionary, targets fundamental challenges for the future technology of virtual reality and spatial augmented reality interfaces.”

“Cheryl held a research internship at Adobe last summer,” adds Professor Kaplan, “where she conducted HCI research on typographic layouts in Adobe’s Graphics Intelligence and Learning Lab. She also designed and conducted an experiment and survey to identify visual preferences in typography.”

While an undergrad, Cheryl launched the University of Toronto’s Computer Graphics Club, as well as volunteered with the Toronto SIGGRAPH chapter and the international SIGGRAPH community.

“Cheryl has served as a student volunteer team leader at the SIGGRAPH conference, and has taken on significant programmatic roles,” Professor Kaplan said. “These included organizing and moderating live panels with industry and academic leaders for the Toronto SIGGRAPH chapter, as well as being a panelist at a women in computer graphics session at SIGGRAPH 2020. Cheryl is the kind of computer science student who not only seeks opportunities to conduct research early in her career, but also the kind of individual who contributes to the betterment of the research community.”

In addition to her internship at Adobe, during her undergraduate degree Cheryl worked as a software developer intern at Autodesk and Intel, and as a software design student at Nokia. She is also a talented ceramic artist and photographer, important creative skills she brings to computer graphics and human-computer interaction research.

Senate meets today and other notes

The University's Senate meets today at 3:30 p.m. on Zoom. Among the agenda items:

• A motion to approve members of the Distinguished Teacher Awards committee;
• A motion to approve members of the Amit & Meena Chakma Award for Exceptional Teaching by a Student committee;
• A motion to approve the Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience (WISIR) becoming a sub-centre of the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation (WICI); and in doing so recognizes that WISIR is dissolved in its own right as a separate Senate Institute;
• A motion to approve revised academic calendar dates for 2021-2022 and calendar guidelines for establishing academic dates;
• A motion to approve revised university jurisdiction and disclaimer language in the Undergraduate Studies Academic Calendar and Graduate Student Academic Calendar; and
• A motion to approve the inactivation of the Honours Life Physics, Honours Life Physics, Biophysics Specialization, and Honours Life Physics, Medical Physics Specialization plans, both regular and co-operative, and the creation of a new plan, Honours Biological and Medical Physics (regular and co-operative), which combines aspects of both biophysics and medical physics, effective 1 September 2023.

In addition to President Vivek Goel's report, the senate will also hear a presentation by Associate Provost, Co-operative and Experiential Education Norah McRae on the Waterloo Experience Accelerate Program, an update from Provost James Rush on the University's operating budget, and a report from Associate Vice-President, International Ian Rowlands on Waterloo International.

The next virtual Pivot-RP workshop for administrative staff is scheduled for Tuesday, March 8 from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. This workshop will describe Pivot-RP, a new searchable databaseof research funding opportunities and provide a live demo, covering features such as curated lists and searches, newsletters, internal funding opportunities, and reporting. The presentation will be followed by a Q & A. For more information and to register for this workshop and for other training opportunities taking place during the winter term, visit the Pivot-RP training webpage.

If you are not available for the webinar, helpful training videos can be found on the Pivot-RP YouTube channel.

Over the last 10 years, alumni Chris Wilson ('21) has created a thriving career with many different roles - from biochemistry to cultural design. Listen to the Uncharted podcast where Chris talks about each step in his career, his work in cultural design, and what happened with that degree.