News

Waterloo management engineering students won a number of awards, including the overall conference grand prize trophy, at the Institute of Industrial Engineers National Student Conference held January 19-21 in Halifax. The Golden I trophy was awarded based on the points the students earned for winning individual and team competitions, contributing a school video and cheer, and for participating in various conference events.

Tom Jenkins, chair of Open Text and a member of Waterloo Engineering’s Dean’s Advisory Council (DAC), has been named an Officer of the Order of Canada for his work in industry, commerce and business. DAC’s members, leaders from industry, academia and the public sector, advise Waterloo Engineering on many matters, including research and educational partnerships, philanthropic partnerships, academic programs, and advocacy and government. Jenkins and other inductees will be presented with their awards by Governor General David Johnston, past president of the University of Waterloo. 

Two electrical and computer engineering professors have been appointed as associate directors of the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE). Claudio Canizares is the new associate director, external partnerships, and Kankar Bhattacharya is the new associate director, advanced training. Both were appointed to two-year terms effective January 1, 2012. In announcing the appointments Adel Sedra, dean of engineering, and Jatin Nathwani, executive director of WISE,  said the positions further enhance the university’s commitment to be a leader in energy research.

Engineering faculty, staff and students will have three opportunities the week of January 9 to hear from Pearl Sullivan, candidate for dean of Waterloo Engineering. Sullivan, currently chair of Waterloo’s mechanical and mechatronics engineering department, has been unanimously recommended by the dean of engineering nominating committee as the next dean of engineering for a five-year term beginning July 1, 2012. If successfully appointed, Sullivan will succeed current dean of engineering Adel Sedra whose second term as dean ends June 30, 2012.

Chemical engineering professor Flora Ng has won the 2011 Hikal Chemcon Distinguished Speaker Award. She will be presented with the award at CHEMCON, the annual conference of the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers, to be held in Bangalore, India December 27-29. This year’s conference theme is Chemical Engineering in Synergistic Growth. Ng will deliver her award lecture on Catalytic Distillation: Applications for the Production of Green Fuel and Chemicals.

The Women’s Studies Society and the Women’s Centre at the University of Waterloo are hosting a December 6th Remembrance Ceremony to commemorate the lives of the women killed at Ecole Polytechnique on December 6, 1989 and to raise awareness of the continued need to prevent violence and abuse against women. The ceremony will take place on Tuesday, December 6 in the Student Life Centre, Multi-Purpose Room (attached to the Great Hall) from 12 noon-1 pm. All are welcome. White ribbons can be picked up at the Women’s Centre in the SLC for those unable to attend the event.

A team comprised of Waterloo management engineering students Helen Jiang and Sally Lee, and math students Larry Xing and Jonathan Yim took first place in the University of Waterloo Capital One Data Mining Cup held November 24. The goal of the competition was to apply data mining techniques to the problems associated with approving credit card applications and setting spending limits. The winning team used a simple but effective strategy of predicting customer spending patterns using decision trees and least-squares linear regression.

There’s a significant Waterloo Engineering presence in the new $26 million Waterloo Region Museum located on Huron Road in Kitchener. The museum was designed by Toronto architects Moriyama and Teshima with Waterloo architecture graduate Brian Rudy as the project architect. The project was managed by another Waterloo graduate architect, Roger Farwell, of the Walter Fedy partnership. Display’s include the famous Waterloo Pump, co-designed by Alan Plumtree in the Faculty of Engineering in 1978.