News

Exceptional students, faculty, staff and alumni were honoured at the 2013 Waterloo Engineering Awards Dinner held on November 21.                    

Over 2,500 students received awards this year for everything from top marks, to extracurricular activities, such as leadership, community engagement and involvement in athletics.    

Ross McKenzie, managing director of the Waterloo Centre for Automotive Research, spoke to Amanda Lang about fuel cell vehicles on CBC's Lang O'Leary Exchange.

He said the fuel problem is not insurmountable, particularly if government and automotive fleets adopt the hydrogen car as a green alternative.

Drew Higgins, a chemical engineering doctoral student, has been named the recipient of the 2013 Electrochemical Society (ECS) Canadian Section Student Award for his research on nanostructured fuel cell and battery electrode materials, carried out under the supervision of Zhongwei Chen, a chemical engineering professor.

 “It’s obviously something about your great engineering school, combined with the resources and encouragement to start building and creating stuff while you’re still in school, that positions Waterloo founders so well to be starting companies," says Alexis Ohanian.

Alexis Ohanian will be spending quality time on campus with University of Waterloo students this Friday November 22.

Catherine Rosenberg, an electrical and computer engineering professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in the Future Internet, has been appointed Chair of the Orange Scientific Board.  Formerly known as France-Telecom, Orange is a French multinational telecommunications corporation that currently employs about 170,000 people and has more than 230 million customers worldwide. The role of the board is to advise Orange on R&D issues.

A software help system co-founded by a new management sciences faculty member has received $500,000 in seed money from the State of Washington's W Fund with additional funding expected to expand the startup's operations. 

Qazzow is based on Parmit Chilana's dissertation work at the University of Washington where she completed her doctoral degree in Information Science earlier this year.  Rather than typing out a question, the software help system allows users to tap on whatever is causing a problem and  relevant Q&A information instantly appears on the screen.

  Waterloo's Women in Engineering committee will be recognized with this year's Status of Women and Equity Committee annual equity and inclusion award at a reception in the Davis Centre November 25.

Waterloo Engineering entrepreneurs who've develop diverse innovative businesses, will compete at the VeloCity Fund Finals on November 28.

Waterloo School of Architecture graduate Paul Dowsett, principle of Sustainable.TO, and a number of other company architects were featured in the Globe and Mail for winning the New York category of the Designing Recovery competition hosted by the American Institute of Architects and Brad Pitt's Make It Right foundation, among others. 

Dowsett recently toured a site struck by Hurricane Sandy in Far Rockaway neighbourhood of Queens, New York where Resilient House, Sustainable.TO's winning entry, will be built.

Graduate student researchers in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo will present 54 research projects across various disciplines at the annual WE INNOVATE conference in Waterloo tomorrow, November 14 in the Sedra Student Design Centre.