William D. Bishop, PEng (He/Him)

Dr. William (Bill) Bishop is the Director of Admissions for the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo, where he leads the Engineering Admissions Team in the Engineering Undergraduate Office. In this role, he oversees the processing of all applications to undergraduate engineering programs, including transfers into first-year engineering programs.

In addition to his administrative duties, Dr. Bishop is an Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He teaches undergraduate courses in engineering design, digital design, and embedded systems. His research interests span engineering education, configurable computing, parallel and distributed systems, hardware and software co-design, embedded systems, and multimedia processing.

Dr. Bishop has been recognized for his outstanding contributions to teaching, research, and service. He received the Faculty of Engineering’s Unsung Hero Award in 2024 for his exceptional service. He has earned Outstanding Performance Awards in 2009, 2013, and 2020, and has twice been honored with the James A. Field Teaching Excellence Award in 2006 and 2011. In 2019, he was awarded an Ontario Volunteer Service Award for his 15 years of service with the Waterloo Wellington Science and Engineering Fair.

Dr. Bishop is a member of several professional organizations, including the Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO), the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE), the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He is also involved with the IEEE Computer, Aerospace, and Education Societies.

• Engineering admissions
• Engineering education
• Configurable computing
• Parallel and distributed systems
• Hardware / software co-design
• Embedded systems
• Image processing
• Multimedia systems and applications

My research explores the application of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to general-purpose computing. My research has examined the use of FPGAs for image processing and enhancement, multimedia processing, and co-processing. I also have research interests in the field of parallel and distributed systems as well as the field of engineering education.

As a senior co-op student, I was employed for 8 months in 1992 and 1993 by Atlantis Aerospace to work on several large software development projects. At Atlantis Aerospace, I developed the core simulation engine for their A320 Airbus flight training devices and their Boeing 747 flight training devices. I was also involved in the development of graphics algorithms for the display units., Prior to working at Atlantis Aerospace, I was employed for 8 months in 1992 and 1991 by Motorola Corporation to work on software for their dispatch systems. I developed code to implement new features and correct bugs in existing features. I was also involved in the port of their product from a VAX VMS platform to an IBM OS/2 platform.

• 2003, Doctorate Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
• 1996, Master of Applied Science Electrical Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
• 1994, Bachelor of Applied Science Computer Engineering / Management Science Option, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

• 2006, James A. Field Distinguished Teaching Award, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Waterloo
• 2009, Outstanding Performance Award, Faculty of Engineering, University of Waterloo
• 2011, James A. Field Distinguished Teaching Award, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Waterloo
• 2013, Outstanding Performance Award, Faculty of Engineering, University of Waterloo
• 2019, Ontario Volunteer Service Award, Waterloo-Wellington Science and Engineering Fair, Government of Ontario
• 2020, Outstanding Performance Award, Faculty of Engineering, University of Waterloo
• 2024, Unsung Hero Award, Faculty of Engineering, University of Waterloo

• 2018- Director of Admissions, Faculty of Engineering

• Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO)
• Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE)
• Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA)
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

• ECE 124 - Digital Circuits and Systems
  • Taught in 2023
• ECE 224 - Embedded Microprocessor Systems
  • Taught in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
• ECE 327 - Digital Hardware Systems
  • Taught in 2022, 2024

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• Wong, Alexander and Bishop, William, Robust edge detection based on non-local contribution of local frequency characteristics, Multimedia, 2008. ISM 2008. Tenth IEEE International Symposium on, 119, 2008
• Wong, Alexander and Bishop, William, Deblocking of block-transform compressed images using phase-adaptive shifted thresholding, Multimedia, 2008. ISM 2008. Tenth IEEE International Symposium on, 97, 2008
• Wong, Alexander and Bishop, William, Backwards Compatible, Multi-Level Regions-of-Interest (ROI) Image Encryption Architecture with Biometric Authentication., SIGMAP, 324, 2007
• Wong, Alexander and Bishop, William, An efficient, parallel multi-key encryption of compressed video streams, The proceedings of International Conference on Signal and Image Processing, , 2006
• Wong, Alexander and Bishop, William, Expert knowledge based automatic regions-of-interest (ROI) selection in scanned documents for digital image encryption, Computer and Robot Vision, 2006. The 3rd Canadian Conference on, 51, 2006
• W. Bishop, The Assessment of Leadership Outcomes in Capstone Projects Using Anonymous Peer Feedback, Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA) Annual Conference 2013, , 2013