News

Engineering researchers will benefit from the use of the new, state-of-the-art CANMET Materials Technology Laboratory that is part of the collaborative research agreement the University of Waterloo signed with the federal government October 12 in Engineering 5.

Waterloo’s Midnight Sun team is now in Australia preparing for the 3,000-km World Solar Challenge from Darwin to Adelaide which takes place October 16-23. Forty vehicles are participating, including ones from the University of Calgary, University of Toronto and Montreal’s Ecole de technologie superieure. The top teams in the world aim to finish the course in three or four days. The 14-member Midnight Sun X team expects to finish in either fifth or sixth place. 

A memorial service for Donald Grierson to celebrate his long career as a distinguished engineer, researcher and educator will take place Thursday, October 27 at 2 p.m. at Trinity Evangelical Missionary Church on Conservation Drive in Waterloo. Grierson, distinguished professor emeritus in civil and environmental engineering, died on August 25. A Waterloo Engineering faculty member for 37 years, he had earned his BASc in civil engineering in 1964, master’s in 1966 and PhD in 1968.

University of Waterloo research project looking to expand the concept of a “smart grid” beyond electricity is receiving a $10,000 grant from Union Gas to create a fully integrated “smart energy network.” The project being run by the Waterloo Institute of Sustainable Energy is building on work ongoing in Ontario to develop a smart grid for the province’s electricity system, using digital two-way communication to allow utilities to respond instantly to changes in demand and automatically fix power outages, as well as giving consumers more control over how and when they use power.

David Weckman of mechanical and mechatronics engineering has been honoured with the American Welding Society’s 2011 Charles H. Jennings Memorial Award for most valuable paper written by a college student or faculty representative published in the Welding Journal during 2010. It is the second time Weckman has won the award. The paper entitled Double-Sided Arc Welding of AA5182-O Aluminum Sheet for Tailor Welded Blank Applications was co-written by Jeff Moulton, Weckman’s graduate student. The award will be presented in November at the AWS annual awards lunch in Chicago.

David Roulston, an internationally recognized researcher in bipolar semiconductor devices and integrated circuits, who was a faculty member in Waterloo’s electrical engineering department from 1967 to 1996, will be recognized with an honorary doctor of engineering degree at fall convocation on October 22. Roulston will also be the central figure of a “celebration” October 20-22 that will include several social events and a Friday afternoon public lecture.

Robert Varin of mechanical and mechatronics engineering has received a Science Technology Transfer Award from the World Association for Innovative Technologies for his Keynote Opening presentation entitled: “Nanomaterials for Solid State Hydrogen Storage-Synthesis and Properties” (co-authors Les Zbroniec and Minchul Jang). The keynote was given at the International Conference for Innovative Technologies IN-TECH 2011, which was held September 1-3 in Bratislava, Slovakia.