News

Ever wondered what music might look like in motion? Electrical and computer engineering professor Dr. Gennaro Notomista and his team at the University of Waterloo are using swarms of robots to turn sound into stunning paintings of light. By translating musical features like tempo and chords into movement and illumination, the robots create live, interactive works of art that blend technology, creativity, and human input.

This exciting work highlights how robotics, art, and music can come together in unexpected ways.

PhD student Ahmed Shaban Omar and Dr. Ramadan El-Shatshat of the University of Waterloo’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) have received the Best Paper Award at the IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference (EPEC) 2025. The award recognizes their innovative research on intelligent energy management for microgrids.

The theme of EPEC 2025 focused on the decarbonization of energy systems, highlighting the importance of smart energy technologies in the transition to a more sustainable electricity grid.

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) is pleased to announce that Professor Dr. Raafat Mansour has been selected as the recipient of the 2025–2026 Faculty of Engineering Award of Excellence in Graduate Supervision.

This award recognizes faculty members who demonstrate outstanding commitment to mentoring graduate students, fostering academic excellence, and supporting the professional development of future researchers and leaders. Dr. Mansour’s dedication to graduate supervision has had a lasting impact on students across multiple generations, many of whom have gone on to successful careers in academia, industry, and research leadership.

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is proud to announce that Dr. Weiyi (Ian) Shang, has been named a 2025 Distinguished Member by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s leading computing society.

This year, ACM recognized 61 Distinguished Members from leading universities, corporations, and research institutions across 16 countries, honouring individuals for significant technical contributions and impactful service to the computing community. The ACM Distinguished Member designation highlights up to 10 percent of ACM’s global membership, celebrating leaders whose work is shaping the future of technology.

We are deeply saddened to share the news of the passing of Dr. Robert (Bob) H. MacPhie, an internationally recognized researcher in antennas and propagation, and a cherished former member of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Dr. MacPhie earned his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1963 and joined the University of Waterloo shortly thereafter as an Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department (now the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering). He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1966 and to Professor in 1971. After a distinguished career spanning more than three decades, he retired in 1996 and was later named a Distinguished Professor Emeritus.

The University of Waterloo has seen an increase in the number of researchers included in this year’s Highly Cited Researchers™ 2025 list recently published by Clarivate. The list highlights the world’s most influential researchers and scientists.

Those selected have authored multiple Highly Cited Papers which rank in the top one per cent by citations in their field. Citations and peer review are the lifeblood of academic research, ensuring both integrity and innovation. The Highly Cited Researchers™ list recognizes only one in 1,000 researchers from around the world.

While several researchers across the University of Waterloo are featured on this year’s list, this article highlights the honourees from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE).

A research team led by Waterloo Engineering professors received $2 million in new federal funding to safeguard Canada’s critical cybersecurity infrastructure by identifying and countering threats that could emerge through the supply chain.

Led by Dr. Sebastian Fischmeister, an electrical and computer engineering professor, and Dr. Michael Mayer, a professor in mechanical and mechatronics engineering, the Materials-based Cybersecurity in Electronics (MATSEC) project brings together a collaborative team of Waterloo Engineering researchers.

A research team from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) has earned international recognition at the IEEE/CVF International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV 2025) — the premier global event in computer vision research.

Under the supervision of Dr. Fakhri Karray, MASc student Md Rezwanul Haque, ECE alumnus S. M. Taslim Uddin Raju, and Dr. Md. Milon Islam received the Best Poster Award and secured 2nd Place in the Continuous Sign Language Recognition Challenge (Unseen Sentences Task) at ICCV 2025.

QR code–based scams, known as quishing, are becoming increasingly common as attackers use fraudulent codes to steal personal information or redirect users to malicious sites. InsideHalton recently explored this issue and interviewed electrical and computer engineering professor, Dr. Kami Vaniea, who provided expert insight into why these attacks are difficult to detect and how users can protect themselves. The article offers a clear overview of the risks and practical guidance for safer QR code use.

Electrical and computer engineering PhD student, Laith Alkhawaldeh, was awarded Best Student Paper at the IEEE PES ISGT-Asia 2025 conference, held in Guangzhou, China from October 31 to November 2, 2025.

Alkhawaldeh’s paper titled “Adaptive ADMM for Distributed Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading,” presents a distributed optimization framework for peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading among residential prosumers.