News

Four PhD students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) have earned the NSERC Canada Graduate Research Scholarship – Doctoral (CGRS D), one of Canada's most prestigious and competitive awards for doctoral researchers.

The 2026 recipients are:

• Ahmed Metwally Hegazy
• Angeline Lafleur
• Andy (Andres) Schang
• Michael Ross Spinazze

Awarded through a national competition, the CGRS D recognizes exceptional PhD students whose academic excellence, research achievements and leadership potential position them among Canada's most promising emerging scholars.

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of Waterloo is celebrating an exciting milestone as Dr. Weihua Zhuang has been named a double nominee for the 2026 Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest Women of the Year Awards.

Recognized for both her lasting influence and continued innovation, Zhuang is nominated for the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) Award—a rare distinction that reflects the breadth of her impact, from mentoring generations of engineers to shaping the future of communication technologies.

A team of researchers from the Wireless Sensors and Devices Lab (WSDL) in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo has been named a Top 10 Finalist in the 2026 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Industry Paper Competition for their paper, “A Digital Twin Baseline for Hybrid Quantum Machine Learning (QML) in WiFi Sensing.”

Led by Dr. George Shaker, adjunct professor in ECE, and Director of the Wireless Sensors and Devices Lab (WSDL), the research team includes lead author and PhD student Sebastian Ratto Valderrama, postdoctoral researcher Ahmed Sayed, and ECE alum Abdelrahman Elbadrawy, working in collaboration with industry partners Synopsys and EigenQ. Sebastian is co-supervised by ECE professor, Dr. Omar Ramahi, who is also a co-author on the paper.

Dr. Ladan Tahvildari, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo, has once again been named an IBM Champion, earning the distinction for 2026. This recognition highlights her continued leadership and contributions to the global IBM technology community, building on her selection as an IBM Champion in 2025.

The IBM Champion designation is awarded annually to individuals who demonstrate exceptional advocacy, technical expertise, and meaningful engagement within IBM’s technology ecosystem. Recipients are recognized for their contributions to advancing innovation, sharing knowledge, and supporting the broader technology community through research, collaboration, and knowledge exchange.

ECE PhD student Soomin Shin has been awarded a $15,000 scholarship from the Waterloo Data and AI Institute, recognizing her innovative research at the intersection of artificial intelligence and real-world physical systems.

Supervised by Kerstin Dautenhahn, Shin is a member of the Social and Intelligent Robotics Research Lab (SIRRL), where researchers explore how robots can interact with people in meaningful, socially aware ways. Her work focuses on building scalable social robot systems that can operate sustainably in real-world environments by integrating advanced AI capabilities.

Electrical and computer engineering PhD student Ahmed Metwally Hegazy, under the supervision of Dr. Raafat Mansour, has been named a recipient of the 2026 IEEE MTT-S Graduate Fellowship by the IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society (MTT-S). This international fellowship recognizes outstanding PhD research contributions in RF and microwave engineering. Fellowship recipients are selected annually, with only 12–15 students chosen from around the world (≈20% success rate). Ahmed is the first University of Waterloo student to receive this fellowship since 2012.

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.