News

Waterloo Engineering's outreach operations manager Martin Scherer is among three University of Waterloo winners who will receive funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) 2011 PromoScience Program Competition, the results of which were announced on May 17. Scherer will receive $38,100 over three years for Engineering Science Quest's satellite programming.

The PromoScience program offers financial support for organizations working with young Canadians to promote an understanding of science and engineering. 

Both Spring 2012 Governor General's Gold Medals for Waterloo graduate studies have been won by engineering students.  Matthew Day, a mechanical engineering MEng student, has been selected as the master's medal winner and Rongxing Lu, an electrical and computer engineering doctoral candidate, has been chosen as the doctoral medal winner. Both will be honoured at spring convocation. 

Mark Spanjers, a civil and environmental engineering doctoral candidate, has won the Michael A. Provart Environmental Award for best overall student presentation at the 2012 Ontario Water Works Association/Ontario Municipal Water Association Joint Annual Conference and Exhibition held Mary 6-9 in Niagara Falls. He presented a talk entitled “Comparison of four media types for traditional and biofiltration treatment goals: Assessment of rough engineered media and implications for filter media choice.”

Omar Ramahi of electrical and computer engineering is the 2012 recipient of the IEEE EMC Society's technical achievement award.  The honour recognizes Ramahi's significant technical accomplishments in the field of electromagnetic compatibility.
 

Rana Tehrani Yekta is bright, ambitious and an inspiration for women in engineering. The civil engineering master's student is the newest $10,000 Vale Master’s in Engineering Scholarship winner and joins the list of impressive women who represent the Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation (CEMF) and Vale in encouraging youth and promoting engineering as a profession to women across Canada.

The scholarship is awarded annually to the most promising woman in a graduate engineering program at the master’s level in Canada and comes with a work place opportunity with Vale.

Looking for information on the impact of information technology on people at work and other thought-provoking topics? Guest speakers on information technology and other subjects presented to management sciences professor Peter Carr's classes are available on YouTube.  The speakers include:

Three Waterloo Engineering researchers were among the 11 throughout the Waterloo Region who received prestigious Early Researcher Awards that were announced by John Milloy, MPP for Kitchener Centre, on May 4. Alexander Wong of systems design engineering, Zhongwei Chen and Boxin Zhao, both of chemical engineering, received $140,000 each to support their research projects. 

Waterloo Engineering's incoming associate dean, teaching is one of eight professors province-wide to receive a 2012 Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Christopher Backhouse, an electrical and computer engineering professor, has been appointed the new director of Waterloo's nanotechnology engineering program.  His term runs from May 1, 2012 to April 30, 2015.  Backhouse will succeed current director Marios Ioannidis of chemical engineering.  
 

Lola Sheppard, a School of Architecture professor, has been selected as the recipient of Architecture Canada's 2012 Young Architect Award.
Sheppard, who has been honoured with several awards in the past year including the 2011 Holcim Gold Award, is one of the founding directors of InfraNet Lab, a design research company dedicated to the role infrastructures and networks play in our environment.