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Office of Research employee honoured for contributions to research management excellence
A message from the Office of Research.
An Office of Research staff member has received the 2023 Research Management Excellence Award from the Canadian Association of Research Administrators (CARA).
The award was presented to Leslie Copp, Director of Funding Agencies and Non-Profit Sponsors in the Office of Research at the annual CARA conference on May 15.
Established in 2018, the award recognizes an exceptional research project manager who has made outstanding contributions to research administration and management within a project, team, department or institution or a significant contribution to fostering project management excellence.
In their nominations, colleagues commented on Leslie’s support, passion, dedication, advocacy, mentorship, collaboration, and relationship building among her exceptional qualifications for this award. At Waterloo, Leslie interacts with the University’s senior leaders and faculty members to provide a critical perspective and support the research process.
“As a senior faculty member, I have benefitted from her wisdom in managing complex challenges emerging from large team-based applications,” said John Hirdes, professor in the School of Public Health Sciences at Waterloo. “Leslie is an authoritative, trusted, and reliable source of information and advice to all faculty members.”
Additionally, Leslie provides excellent leadership to her direct reports.
“Leslie’s leadership is unparalleled. She encourages our team’s creativity to develop innovative programming and leverages her extensive campus-wide network to ensure we have the connections, resources, and support to do so,” current and former colleagues wrote in the nomination.
Outside the University, Leslie has also built effective and long-lasting working relationships.
“CIHR, as a sponsor, respects Leslie and often asks her opinion and takes her opinions very seriously. She has had input into CIHR that has made lasting impacts,” says Diane Johnston, associate vice-president, Research and International Management Services.
Congratulations Leslie!
Waterloo leaps to new heights in QS World University Rankings
By Angelica Marie Sanchez. This is an excerpt of an article originally published on Waterloo News.
The University of Waterloo has been named as one of the world's top universities. Waterloo ranked 112 overall in the 2024 QS World University Ranking, a leap from last year’s place at 154. Waterloo also placed among the top five universities in Canada.
QS evaluated approximately 1,500 universities around the world. In a new ranking indicator on sustainability, QS recognizes Waterloo as 36th in the world. The inclusion of this new indicator in the ranking reflects how students prioritize sustainability in their choice of higher education institutions.
“Our place on the global and national scale is a testament to our exceptional community of students, researchers, faculty members, staff and University partners,” says Vivek Goel, president and vice-chancellor. “As we work to build a better and more sustainable future for humanity and the planet, Waterloo continues to exemplify its leadership in innovation and entrepreneurship, experiential education and excellence in fundamental and applied research.”
Over the past two decades, the methodology for the QS World University Rankings have been evolving each year reflecting the growth in data availability and changing priorities of students. The QS World University Ranking includes three new indicators: international research network, employment outcomes and sustainability, drawn from new priorities of students while rebalancing the weight of the other existing indicators.
Read the rest of the article on Waterloo News
GreenHouse social impact showcase tomorrow
Each term, United College’s social impact incubator, GreenHouse, hosts the Social Impact Showcase, which celebrates the work GreenHouse students have accomplished through their journeys of social innovation and entrepreneurship, while also providing an opportunity for students to acquire seed funding for their ideas through a pitch competition.
This term, the 29th Showcase will take place on Thursday, June 29 (hey, the 29th on the 29th!) from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the SDG Idea Factory on 2 King Street in Kitchener. Pitching will be:
- Bio-Brick Labs (Adrian Simone, Rania Al-Sheikhly): Developing and manufacturing of environmentally sustainable building materials.
- Battery Disposal Project (Josh Brent): A solution for responsible vape device disposal, involving designated collection bins in vape stores.
- Turion (Mueli Mao): Growing sustainable, alternative protein using duckweed within an aquaponics system.
- HeadFirst (Andrew Cordssen-David): Revolutionizing concussion testing with saliva based screening.
- KaziBridge (Ernest Mwesigye): Connecting trade school graduates in Africa to businesses and individuals seeking quality and secure service.
- Masana Beauty (Neha Grewal): Creating a self-cleansing makeup brush to help solve skin issues from the root cause.
- MetaCycler BioInnovations (Nicole LeBlanc): Converting food waste into biodegradable materials to create a more sustainable future.
- Merge2Own (Chinazom Uwaoma, Ernest Onuorah): Connecting individuals with similar interests to buy property together supported by ecosystem of partners.
- Safi (Martin Turuta, Miraal Kabir, Daria Margarit): Providing East African farmers with an accessible pasteurization handle to clean their milk from any pathogens and prevent the spread of diseases.
- Swish (Miswar Syed): Developing a cost-effective product to clean solar panels in a sustainable and economical way without the use of water or expensive cleaning robots.
- WhereCafe (Nethy Sudswong, Bhavya Ashok): Empowering solo female travelers to travel the world safely by using AI to do the research for you.
Grants will be awarded from GreenHouse's Social Impact Fund, and the community has had a chance to vote for the People's Choice Award, which is worth $1,000 to the winning team. Check out the Peoples Choice Awards video submissions for details.
For more information visit the Social Impact Showcase website.
How to disrupt industries using generative AI
By Stephanie Longeway. This is an excerpt of an article originally posted on Waterloo News.
“Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past eight months, you’ve heard about ChatGPT,” said Jimmy Lin, professor and David R. Cheriton Chair in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo.
“It is the fastest growing consumer application in history reaching more than 100 million active users in less than two months. For reference, it took Tik Tok a whole nine months and Instagram two and a half years to reach the same threshold.”
The historic growth in popularity and access to generative AI technologies like ChatGPT and Bard are quickly changing the way we work. Waterloo’s WatSPEED, hosted a masterclass at Collision 2023 to unpack the meteoric rise of ChatGPT, and other large language models (LLM) like it, to provide a strategy for entrepreneurs and business executives to unlock its transformative potential.
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Lin led the session alongside Joel Blit, professor in the Faculty of Arts. Blit said that the biggest lesson we can take from history about general-purpose technologies is that it “takes decades to truly feel their impact.”
But LLMs have been around for about 10 years, so “we are truly at an inflection point … it’s about to explode,” Blit added.
Read the rest of the article on Waterloo News
CIHR Public, Community and Population Health Information Session coming up in July
A message from the Office of Research and the Centre for Bioengineering and Biotechnology.
You are invited to a CIHR Public, Community and Population Health (PH) Information Session on Tuesday, July 18 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. The purpose of this virtual information session is to give potential applicants to the PH Peer Review Committees of the CIHR Project Grant program an opportunity to hear first-hand about the committee ‘culture’.
This session will cover what sort of proposals are regularly seen in the PH committees, what aspects are generally well-received by reviewers, what factors are considered particularly important, how the committees’ mandate is interpreted, and what types of proposals are transferred to or from other committees.
The chairs, Drs. Kwame McKenzie and Chris McLeod will be available to make comments on these issues and to interact with potential applicants on their questions.