News

Mary Robinson was a Grade 7 student standing in a hallway of her Ottawa school when she heard about the Dec. 6, 1989 tragedy.

Only 11 years old at the time, Robinson recalls the “gut punch” she felt after finding out 14 women, mainly engineering students, were murdered during an anti-feminist rampage at École Polytechnique in Montreal.

Now an engineering lecturer, she served as associate director of first-year engineering for more than a decade before being appointed the Faculty’s first associate dean of outreach, equity and diversity earlier this year. 

Two former Waterloo Engineering students have made a prominent list of young luminaries from the worlds of business, sports and everything in between.

Apoorva Mehta, the founder of Instacart, and Alex Rodrigues, co-founder of Embark Technology, appear on a Hall of Fame 30 Under 30 list published this week by Forbes magazine.

Others on the list include LeBron James, Mark Zuckerberg, Rihanna, Malala Yousafzai, Kylie Jenner and Naomi Osaka.

Five panelists will discuss what it's like to identify as LGBTQ+ while at Waterloo Engineering or in industry during a Dec. 2 discussion hosted by EngiQueers.

A Faculty chair, a data solutions and research program manager, a professional engineer with 30 years of experience in the transportation sector and two recent alumni will talk about their experiences with coming out as gay or transgender.

Three student teams featuring members from Waterloo Engineering took home $5,000 each from the recent Concept $5k pitch competition for fall 2021.

MicroBuild Masonry, Learnlist and Hydro House were among eight finalists competing for four prizes at the virtual event, which is staged three times a year.

MicroBuild (Adrian Simone, third-year civil engineering) is developing a sustainable, biological method to manufacture masonry units.

A professor at the School of Architecture at Waterloo is racking up awards as a member of the design team for an innovative project in China.

David Correa, a design partner at architecture studio LLLab, worked with the team on a canopy and a group of pod-like pavilions mainly made of woven bamboo.

Shoukry Saleh, a retired faculty member who helped build a Waterloo Engineering department, died on August 9 at the age of 91.

In 1968, he was one of four professors recruited by Archibald Sherburne, then dean of Waterloo Engineering, to establish the Faculty’s management sciences department.

Instrumental to its launch the following year, Saleh served as department chair from September 1974 to August 1978.

Enormous challenges presented by COVID-19 have been no match for many Waterloo Engineering students, professors and alumni who started or advanced their research during the pandemic.

For most, restrictions made them even more determined to tackle problems head-on and come up with innovative and life-enhancing solutions, some of which address coronavirus-related medical issues. 

A company with strong ties to Waterloo Engineering was recently recognized by an organization dedicated to bringing technology communities together.

DarwinAI, which has developed technology to explain how and why artificial intelligence makes decisions, was named Best Tech Startup at the virtual North American Timmy Awards.

It was one of six awards handed out by Tech in Motion, which was created by IT staffing firm Motion Recruitment, to honour top technology employers.

Two students at Waterloo Engineering took the top prize in a national contest for social entrepreneurs.

Peter Cornelisse and Lucas Godkin, both fourth-year mechanical engineering students, received $25,000 as the winners of the NU National Student Award for Outstanding Social Entrepreneurship.

Cornelisse and Godkin are developing an off-grid, renewable energy generation and storage system as an affordable alternative to fossil fuel generators.

A leading biotechnologist who earned his engineering degree at Waterloo is one of this year’s Top 40 Under 40 for the country.

Vikramaditya G. Yadav (BASc '07, chemical engineering) is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia, where he directs its Master of Engineering Leadership program in sustainable process engineering.