News

A professor at Waterloo Engineering is warning Canadians to expect poor air quality to become more routine due to the impact of wildfires and other factors.

As the summer wildfire season begins, Dr. Rebecca Saari said they have historically been a major cause of air pollution and their impact is only expected to grow with continuing climate change.

Waterloo Engineering is mourning the loss of Dr. Sinnathamby Thambithurai (S.T.) Ariaratnam, one of the earliest members of the Department of Civil Engineering. He passed away on April 2, 2026. He was 92.

Ariaratnam joined the University of Waterloo in September 1962, recruited as one of the institution's first engineering professors when it was only a few years old. He taught in the department for nearly four decades until his retirement in 2001, and was named Distinguished Professor Emeritus in 2002.

Breathing unhealthy air could be routine for almost one in three Americans by 2100 due to climate change, modelling led by researchers at Waterloo Engineering shows.

The new study found that about 100 million people in the United States will live in areas where average air quality during smog season – which runs from the beginning of May to the end of September – is poor enough to trigger alerts advising vulnerable people to stay indoors. 

The Faculty of Engineering is mourning the loss of Dr. Brian Le Lievre, a professor emeritus in civil and environmental engineering. Le Lievre died on Jan. 2, 2026, at the age of 98.

Le Lievre was part of the University of Waterloo’s earliest generation of scholars in soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering, helping shape the department in its founding years. Across more than 25 years at Waterloo, he taught, mentored and led with a steady focus on students and the discipline.

Creative ideas for a proposed all-wood Waterloo Engineering building won a student team first prize in an international contest.

The Structural Timber and Applied Research Team (START) was recognized in the student submission category of the Build the (Im)possible challenge sponsored by Rothoblaas, a timber technology company located in Italy.

Two civil and environmental doctoral candidates received outstanding student presentation awards in the hydrology section of the annual American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.

Danyka Byrnes and Robert Chlumsky spoke about their research at the event held online in December. Considered to be one of the premier international geophysical conferences, it normally draws over 25,000 participants.

Municipal transit services could increase ridership by co-ordinating with, not competing against, commercial ridesharing companies.

Waterloo Engineering researchers found that transit-ridesharing links in poorly serviced suburban neighbourhoods, where frequent bus service on fixed routes is cost-prohibitive, could help get people out of their cars by making transit more convenient.

Michelle Liu carefully plans each hour of each day three weeks in advance to figure out where she needs to be and when.

Between volunteering up to 40 hours a month in several different roles on and off campus and keeping on top of her graduate studies, she constantly checks her changing calendar.

“I call it 80 productive hours a week, divided between volunteering and my studies,” Liu says with a laugh.

Top Waterloo teams at this year’s Ontario Engineering Competition (OEC) will compete against the best from across Canada on campus later this winter.

Waterloo Engineering students placed first and third in both the Innovative Design and Senior Design categories and second in the Junior Design category at OEC held at McMaster University earlier this month. The first and second place teams will move on to compete in the Canadian Engineering Competition (CEC) to be held March 1-3 in Pearl Sullivan Engineering.  

An environmental engineering graduate studies student and his supervisor recently won the 2017 Water Resources Research Editors' Choice Award for a paper based on their research.