Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Computer Science mourns Alex Lopez-Ortiz

​Originally published on the Cheriton School of Computer Science news site

It is with great sadness that we announce that our friend and colleague, Alejandro (Alex) López-Ortiz, passed away on Sunday, March 12, 2017, at age 49, after an 18-month battle with cancer. Alex was a Professor and a central and enthusiastic force in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science.

Alex was born in Mexico City. The son of an academic, he graduated from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México with a Licentiate in Mathematics in 1989. He then came to Waterloo as a graduate student in computer science, where he obtained a Master’s of Mathematics (CS) followed by a PhD in CS under the supervision of Prabhakar Ragde.

After obtaining his doctoral degree, Alex shifted his focus to applied algorithms, becoming a research scientist at OpenText in 1996. Two years later he accepted a position as an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science at the University of New Brunswick. Alex moved to Seattle in 2000 to become the Director of Internet Research at Internap Network Services, where he led a research team to develop and implement an automated quality of service­–based routing system.

Waterloo always beckoned to him, so Alex rejoined us in 2001 as an Assistant Professor in the School of Computer Science. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2004 and became a Full Professor in 2012. He supervised nine PhD thesis students and was an author or coauthor on more than 200 publications on a variety of topics in computer science. Alex’s research focused on adaptive algorithms and measures of quality in online algorithms, but through his collaborative spirit he coauthored papers with many colleagues both within and outside the School. He was a unifying force and his lasting impact continues to be felt widely across many topic areas.

Alex was born in a global metropolis of more than 25 million people, but from his earliest days here he embraced smaller-town life in Waterloo. It was in Waterloo that his son, Mackenzie (14), and daughter, Sophia (11), were born. We are grateful for the time Alex spent with us and for enriching our lives through camaraderie and collaboration. We will ensure that the productive research partnerships he forged will endure.

Our thoughts are with Alex’s family — wife Cassandra Wigmore, children Mackenzie and Sophia Wigmore López, sister Citlali López­‐Ortiz, niece Luciana Toledo-López, and father Alejandro Lopez-Yáñez.

The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to cancer research through the Cancer Research Society.

Pharmacists Support: family business

The Pharmacists Support series is issued by the School of Pharmacy for #PAM2017. It runs every Tuesday and Thursday in March.

Owning your own pharmacy is a hefty responsibility, but for Angela the hard work and long hours are both familiar and rewarding. Angela and her sister Gina grew up in and out of Preston Medical Pharmacy in Cambridge.

Founded in 1985, the pharmacy was owned by their father. He retired around the same time that Angela was graduating from the School of Pharmacy, and it was only logical to keep the business in the family.

“One of the biggest rewards of owning our own pharmacy is being able to practice pharmacy the way we want to practice,” she says. Angela and her sister offer a variety of clinical services to meet the needs of their patients, many of whom they’ve known for decades.

Angela is proud to be a local business owner and a supportive member of her community.

“In our case, there are many patients that are second and third generation patients with our pharmacy. They remember how we treated their parents and grandparents and are thankful for the excellent service.”

New HeForShe Writing Contest winner announced

A poem by Emily Schroeder, a staff member in the Secretariat, was acknowledged last week as an additional winner in the HeForShe Writing Contest.

"Her poem had been selected by the judges as a winner, but due to an administrative error, it was left out of the formal announcement and initial anthology publication," says a statement from the contest organizers. "Emily wins $500 for her poem, which will also be printed in subsequent copies of the anthology."

Schroeder's poem is a letter to the speaker’s son and daughter that acknowledges the struggles and challenges of working mothers as they pursue both parenthood and education.

Night Classes

By Emily Schroeder

Daughter, I have no time to play with you.

I have to read. Please sit, my dear, by me.

Son, don’t you know I have a project due?

Go to your room and play more quietly!

You deserve a better life, don’t you know?

Grandmother could not finish school. And me?

I pushed my dreams aside to help you grow.

Life wants work and responsibility.

Yet, my mother and I studied at night.

In class, at home, in darkness, hour by hour.

We come from women who quietly fight

To ask, learn, grow, create, and empower.

My Son, with Daughter, that honour you share.

Hold us up, he for she, that is my prayer.

The HeForShe Writing Contest anthology, Equity In/Action, will be available for free at the Book Store and at other locations across campus beginning the week of March ­27.­

Speaker to talk about detention in Iranian prison

Homa Hoodfar, the Concordia University professor who was detained for 112 days in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, will visit the University of Waterloo to deliver the Department of Anthropology’s 2017 Silver Medal Award Guest Lecture on Wednesday, March 15.

"Politics and the Right to Critical Thinking: My Time in Evin Prison" will be a talk about academic freedom based on Hoodfar’s experiences in 2016 following her arrest while on a personal and academic visit to Iran.

Hoodfar is a Canadian-Iranian sociocultural anthropologist and professor emerita of anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal. She is widely known for her work on gender and development in Islam, Western perceptions of the veil, and women's participation in public life, the labour force, and electoral, legal, and social politics in Middle Eastern societies.

The lecture takes place at 5:00 p.m. in Room 0020 of the Science Teaching Complex.

Pi Day and other notes

Today is Pi Day. The Mathematics Society will be holding its annual celebration today. Beginning at 1:59 p.m., come out to MC 3^rd floor hallway to eat free pie with ice cream, a pie-eating contest at 2:15 p.m., and a pi recitation contest at 2:30 p.m. in the MC comfy lounge with a $315.15 giftcard up for grabs.

The annual Knowledge Integration eXhibition, or KI-X, is taking place at St. Jerome's University this week.

The students of the Copenhagen II cohort in the Knowledge Integration program at the University of Waterloo are inviting members of the University community to experience the culmination of their third-year design project: The Museum Course. After spending ten days in Copenhagen last April and May, they returned to Waterloo in September ready to implement some of the design features examined on their trip. 

The exhibition showcases the students' knowledge of museums and their design methods. KI-X 2017 is taking place at St. Jerome’s University, Siegfried Hall Residence Wellness Centre from Monday, March 13 to Saturday, March 18.

Exhibits include:

• declassified - How economic class affects your life may seem complicated… until it’s deCLASSified;
• Fear Itself - Learn about how and why fear affects your body by diving into the world of popular culture;
• Tainted Love - Is love today as simple as “happily ever after”?;
• The Cognitive Casino - Explore how hidden biases colour our feelings and actions;
• Value to a T - Using T-shirts as a case study, we’ve tailored this exhibit to explore the factors that affect how YOU value objects;
• Welcome to Utopia - Decide for yourself; Utopia or Dystopia?

Waterloo's Social Development Lab, located in the Psychology department, is looking for participants for a study that aims to better understand how children’s early personalities influence the way they manage their attention and emotion in a variety of situations over time. We are looking for parents and children (age 7) to take part in our longitudinal study! In our first visit, parents and children will be completing computer tasks and questionnaires (approximately 2.5 hours). In a years time, parents will be re-contacted to participant again. For your child’s participation, they will receive a $15 gift card per visit. You can find out more information by contacting the lab at sdl@uwaterloo.ca or by calling extension 38775.

Conrad Grebel University College is inviting eligible architects to submit a proposal for the provision of architectural and engineering consulting services for a Kitchen and Dining Room Expansion and Renovation Architectural Feasibility Study.

The study report and schematic designs will be used to inform the College’s stakeholders of potential designs and to generate interest in the project among potential donors.

Check out the Conrad Grebel news site for the full story.