Current students

Thursday, October 19, 2023 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm EDT (GMT -04:00)

Further Education Fair

Are you looking into pursuing future studies but not sure where to start? The Further Education Fair is the perfect opportunity for you! On October 19, you will be able to speak with representatives about programs and schools you're interested in. This event is a great opportunity to get the information you need to start program research or support your application for further study.

Talk to over 70+ representatives from teaching, law, MBA, engineering, health, pharmacy, optometry, veterinary medicine, social work, college post-degree/certificate programs in Canada and abroad.

Friday, October 20, 2023 11:00 am - 12:30 pm EDT (GMT -04:00)

Collaborative Water Program (CWP) 2023 Information Session

Interested in adding a Water Qualification to Your University of Waterloo graduate degree?

The University of Waterloo’s Collaborative Water Program (CWP) is the most interdisciplinary water graduate program in Canada. Co-delivered by 11 departments and schools from all 6 faculties, over 400 students have participated in the CWP since its launch in 2013.

Current CWP students, prospective CWP students and faculty are welcome to join a CWP Information Session on October 20.

The purpose of the Information session will be to review and discuss program objectives and requirements, course descriptions and expectations and other academic-related topics. You will meet the CWP Director Dr. Nandita Basu, course instructors and Water Institute staff and graduate students.

Please plan to attend!

The Department of Chemical Engineering (ChE) and the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) are partnering to organize a series of discourses on technology-based solutions to global challenges linked to UN Sustainable Development Goals.

We are pleased to present another discourse in our series: Circular Economies: Electronic and Electrochemical Devices.

The distinguished panel for this event comprises Komal Habib (SEED), Steven Young(SEED), Ting Tsui (ChE), Michael Fowler (ChE), and Asmae Mokrini from the National Research Council (NRC).

Please join us in Faculty Hall, (E7-7303/7363) from 2:30 - 3:30pm.

Registration is required! Refreshments will be provided.

Friday, October 27, 2023 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm EDT (GMT -04:00)

The Psychology of Fun and Frustration

An enduring appeal of interactive entertainment media such as video games is that they invite the user to co-create the on-screen experience. More than an invitation, these experiences demand near-constant attention from players—and do so on myriad dimensions, including cognitive (problem-solving), emotional (affective reactions), apparatus (control or interface intuitiveness), exertional (physical activity) and social (attending to social agents). Individually and combined, these sources of demand are mediators for understanding the relationship between formal features of interactive media and intended (or unintended) outcomes of usage.

This presentation will present and review an interactivity-as-demand model based on prior and ongoing research into video games and virtual reality technologies, with specific implications for game design and player psychology.

Speaker Bio: Nick Bowman (PhD, Michigan State University) is an Associate Professor of Emerging Media at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. His research focuses on the uses and effects of interactive and immersive media, with specific interests in social media, video games, and metaverse technologies. He has published more than

125 peer-reviewed manuscripts and co-authored more than 200 competitively selected conference presentations. He is the editor of Journal of Media Psychology and associate editor for Technology, Mind, and Behavior. Recently, he completed a term as the Fulbright Taiwan Wu Jing-Jyi Arts & Culture Fellow and the National Chengchi University in Taipei, where he was researching the cognitive, emotional, physical, and social demands of virtual reality experiences, including video gaming and digital advertising campaigns. He is a lifelong gamer, part-time mechanic, and an excited-yet-skeptical futurist.

Monday, October 16, 2023 8:45 am - 2:00 pm EDT (GMT -04:00)

Quantum-Nanomaterials & Devices Workshop with Jiwoong Park

The Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) and the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) are pleased to present a workshop event on “Quantum-Nanomaterials & Devices."

This event will take place on Monday, 16 October 2023 from 8:45 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in QNC 0101.

Jiwoong Park from the University of Chicago will be the keynote speaker presenting at 11:15 AM. A networking lunch will be hosted after the keynote presentation.

Tuesday, October 31, 2023 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm EDT (GMT -04:00)

The Case for Paratopian Design

What if we could make complex social and cultural questions playable? And what if we could do so through interactions with familiar digital interfaces set in alternative presents and near futures? The work I will discuss sits at the intersection between the design traditions of speculative and critical design on the one hand, and the philosophies and best practices of game design, playful media and interaction design on the other. It turns out, though, that an arranged marriage between these traditions produces unusual offspring. In this talk, grounded in examples including outsourcing religious tolerance to technological solutions, Indigenous Hawaiians undertaking space travel, matrimonial websites from the near future, and flirtatious AI chatbot therapists, I make the case for paratopian design, which is neither utopian
nor dystopian, but proposes paradigm shifts that invite us to reconceptualize and reconsider the building blocks of "here" & "now".

This event is part of the “ADE for Game Communities: Enculturing Anti-Racism, Decolonization, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (ADE) in Games Research and Creation” series from the ADE Committee of the Games Institute, University of Waterloo, and is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Rilla Khaled is an Associate Professor of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montréal. She directs the Technoculture, Art and Games (TAG) Research Centre. Her work focuses on how playful media can improve daily life, and spans designing award-winning games, creating speculative prototypes of near-future technologies, working with BIPOC communities to materialise inclusive futures, establishing foundations for recoverable, materials-based game design research, and articulating boundaries for experimental uses of AI.

The importance of liquid fuels in transportation is well established, yet, there are presently no viable options for their cost-effective production from renewable feedstocks.  During the past 15 years we have been developing in my lab a system for the conversion of gas mixtures of hydrogen (or CO) and CO2 to oils or alkanes. The two-stage system comprises anaerobic fixation of CO2 and conversion of the CO2 fixation product (for example, acetate) to lipids, from which biodiesel can be produced. In another application, the CO2 fixation product is converted to alkanes. Our work includes both the engineering of the microbes and development of a process to achieve gas to liquid conversion in prototype systems. These systems are scalable, make no use of land (beyond what is needed for generating renewable electricity for hydrogen production), do not compete with food and are cost competitive based on high level cost analysis. I will present the essential features of this process in my talk; full details can be found in the 5 papers cited.

Friday, November 3, 2023 3:00 pm - 7:00 pm EDT (GMT -04:00)

10th Anniversary Celebration of the Collaborative Water Program

Join us for a special milestone marking the 10th Anniversary of the University of Waterloo Water Institute Collaborative Water Program (CWP)! It's time to celebrate 10 remarkable cohorts of CWP graduates from the most interdisciplinary water graduate program in Canada.

The Water Institute and the Collaborative Water Program team are delighted to organize this anniversary celebration welcoming our alumni back to Waterloo,
offering a platform to exchange your experiences and insights from the water sector and beyond. Be part of this exciting gathering and get ready to reminisce and forge new connections at the upcoming event!

The anniversary celebration program includes:

Welcome

Nandita Basu
Director, Collaborative Water Program
Canada Research Chair in Global Water Sustainability and Ecohydrology
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth and Environmental Sciences

CWP Alumni Panel

Rob De Loë
Facilitator, Director Emeritus, Collaborative Water Program
Professor & Associate Dean, Research
Faculty of Environment, School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability (SERS)

Catherine Brown
Knowledge Mobilization Specialist, Ducks Unlimited, CWP Cohort 2 (2014/15)

Sabrina Bedjera
Policy Analyst, Natural Resources Canada, CWP Cohort 3 (2015/16)

Thadshayini Chandrakumaran
Associate, Miller Thomson, CWP Cohort 3 (2015/16)

Frederick Cheng
Postdoctoral Fellow, Colorado State University, CWP Cohort 3 (2015/16)

Chris Muirhead
Water Resources Engineer | Integrated Water Management Service Line Coordinator, GHD, CWP Cohort 4 (2016/17)

Laina Timberg
Indigenous Community Relations Specialist, Metrolinx, CWP Cohort 8 (2020/21)

Keynote Address

Bruce MacVicar
Director Emeritus, Collaborative Water Program
Associate Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Tony Maas, Senior Policy Officer, Office of the Prime Minister of Canada

Special Announcement

Mark Servos
Director Emeritus, Collaborative Water Program
Professor, Canada Research Chair in Water Quality Protection
Faculty of Science, Department of Biology

Closing remarks and adjournment

Dustin Garrick
Director Designate 2024-25, Collaborative Water Program
Associate Professor & University Research Chair
Faculty of Environment, School of Environment, Resources, and Sustainability

Reception

The evening reception offers a chance to unwind and connect with fellow alumni, CWP faculty, and current students over refreshments and appetizers. Do not miss this special anniversary celebration filled with knowledge sharing, networking, and reminiscing.

We can't wait to welcome you back to Waterloo!

Friday, November 3, 2023
3:00 – 5:00 p.m. (Program)
5:00 – 7:00 p.m. (Reception)
SLC Black and Gold Room
University of Waterloo

Tuesday, October 17, 2023 12:30 pm - 1:20 pm EDT (GMT -04:00)

Robotics, 4D printing, and Biomimetics in Architectural Design

Join David Correa, Associate Professor in the School of Architecture for a seminar on the implementation of state of the art digital fabrication tools (robotic manipulators, 4D printers and CNC milling) to develop innovative and high-performance design solutions for industrial and architectural applications.