Faculty

Friday, March 21, 2025 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm EDT (GMT -04:00)

MDSAI | Celebrating 5 Years of Excellence

The Master of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (MDSAI) program is proud to celebrate 5 years of excellence!

Since its launch in 2019, the MDSAI program has established itself as a leading academic program, and is ranked second in Canada by the QS World Subject Rankings. Over 120 students have successfully graduated, making their mark in the fields of data science and artificial intelligence.

To mark this remarkable milestone, MDSAI alumni, esteemed faculty, and current students will be invited to celebrate on March 21, 2025. The celebration will provide the opportunity to reconnect, reflect on our achievements, and look ahead to a future filled with innovation and success.

Students in the Master of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (MDSAI) - Co-operative Program have been successful in utilizing their interdisciplinary foundation and technical and analytical skills in their co-operative jobs.

Convocation is a momentous occasion that honours the dedication and achievements of graduates. Family and friends come together with the University of Waterloo community to celebrate graduating students as they embark on exciting new adventures.

This year, graduate students will take the stage as valedictorians representing the Class of 2024 for the first time during the fall convocation ceremonies.

A recently released update to the QS subject ranking for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence puts the University of Waterloo second in Canada and 4oth globally.

The results are part of the annual QS World University Rankings by Subject, which rank approximately 1,600 universities in 54 disciplines. Indicators for the subject rankings are drawn from a peer review survey, employer survey, citations data and collaboration data.

“The new rankings from QS show the ways that data scientists at Waterloo are leading innovation in the field and providing opportunities for our students to learn from the absolute best,” said M. Tamer Özsu, co-director of the Graduate Data Science Program and a professor of computer science. “Achieving this recognition only five years since the start of the program shows it’s an exciting time to be working in data science and artificial intelligence at Waterloo.”

Wednesday, June 12, 2024 10:00 am - 12:00 pm EDT (GMT -04:00)

Data Science June 2024 Graduation Celebration

Congratulations to the eight incoming master’s students in the Faculty of Mathematics who have been chosen as recipients of this year’s Vector Institute Scholarships in AI. The eight students are among twelve students at Waterloo, and 115 across Ontario, who will each receive $17,500 towards their groundbreaking research in AI.

“On behalf of the Government of Ontario, we’d like to congratulate the 115 talented students who are recipients of the Vector Scholarship in Artificial Intelligence,” says The Honourable Vic Fedeli, the Ontario Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation, and Trade. “Ontario is a leading source of tech and AI talent, and by fostering innovation in critical technologies, we are enabling domestic companies to compete and win on the global stage.”

Wednesday, April 12, 2023 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm EDT (GMT -04:00)

From AlphaGO to ChatGPT Public Talk

Sponsored by the Faculty of Math Data Science Graduate Programs, please join University of Waterloo expert in artificial intelligence, Professor Pascal Poupart, for a public talk in which he will describe the key technological advances in recent years which were behind, and ultimately facilitated, these breakthroughs.

Tuesday, October 14, 2025 - Wednesday, December 31, 2025 (all day)

AI Future Leaders: Alina Rivilis on Data, Ethics & the Next Generation of AI

In this episode of Canadian Women Shaping AI, we sit down with Alina Rivilis — CEO & Co-Founder of AI Future Leaders and Director of Data Science & AI at Home Trust Company — to explore how data, ethics, and innovation come together to shape the future of AI.

With over 25 years of experience in Enterprise Technology, AI strategy, and Data Science Leadership, Alina has built a career at the intersection of innovation and integrity. Through AI Future Leaders, she is helping schools, organizations, and individuals adopt AI responsibly while fostering critical thinking and creativity.

In our conversation, we discuss what it means to build trust in data-driven systems, how ethical education can fuel innovation, and why preparing people — not just technology — is at the heart of a sustainable AI future.

Noreen episode Canadian Women Shaping AI

Monday, October 6, 2025 - Wednesday, December 31, 2025 (all day)

Noureen Syed on AI leadership and empathy at IBM Consulting Canada

Women in Data & AI (WiDA) at Waterloo

Episode 1 — Canadian Women Shaping AI | Noreen Syed, IBM Consulting Canada

Kicking off Canadian Women Shaping AI with Noureen Syed, Partner at IBM Consulting Canada and proud UWaterloo alum. We dive into her journey from engineering at UWaterloo to leading AI transformations across Canada - and how empathy, curiosity, and strategy define impactful leadership in tech.

Wednesday, November 15, 2023 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm EST (GMT -05:00)

Data Science Industry Panel Event: Industry and Academic Perspectives

Join us November 15, 2023 at 2 p.m. in DC 1302 for the Data Science Industry Panel Event: Industry and Academic Perspectives

EVENT HIGHLIGHTS

Expert Talks:

Hear from Yannick Lallement, VP, Global Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning at Scotiabank and Tamer Özsu, Professor in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, as they explore data science from an industry and academic perspective.

Panel Discussion:

Our distinguished panel of experts will answer questions and further discuss perspectives of Data Science.

Tamer Özsu, Professor | David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
Yannick Lallement, VP, Global Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning | Scotiabank
Jeff Hatcher, Director, Advanced Analytic | Canadian Institute for Health Information

Networking Opportunities:

The talk and panel event will be followed by an opportunity to network with our experts, special guests and fellow classmates in DC 1301. Refreshments will be served.

EVENT TALKS

Scotiabank's approach to Large Language Models (LLM)
Yannick Lallement | VP, Global Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Scotiabank

A presentation on Scotiabank's risk-based approach to LLM enablement. Including the usage of ChatGPT, the major use cases identified so far and their road to production, and an update on various LLM pilots the bank is running.

A Systematic View of Data Science
Tamer Özsu | Professor, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science

There is a data-driven revolution underway in science and society, disrupting every form of enterprise. We are collecting and storing data more rapidly than ever before. There is an increasing recognition that data science can assist in leveraging this data and the insights obtained from it into products, systems, and policies. This has resulted in the formation within academia of data science research centres, institutes and even academic units and the establishment of major initiatives within every major industrial organization. However, our understanding of data science is vague and highly varied and, in many cases, are squeezed to fit the available openings within an institution. There is a need to approach this field systematically to define its scope and its boundaries. The objective of this talk is to provide such a consistent and systematic study of the scoping of data science.