News

A startup company co-founded by a Waterloo Engineering alumnus to help people manage their cryptocurrency investments has joined the ranks of unicorns.

CoinTracker, an online service based in San Francisco, recently announced a US $100-million funding round that gives it a valuation of US $1.3 billion.

Company co-founder and chief executive officer Jon Lerner, who was born in Russia and grew up in Ottawa, graduated from Waterloo in 2010 with a degree in computer engineering.

New technology could help reduce malnutrition and improve overall health in long-term care (LTC) homes by automatically recording and tracking how much food residents consume.

The smart system, developed by engineering and health researchers at the University of Waterloo, the Schlegel-UW Research Institute for Aging and the University Health Network (UHN), uses artificial intelligence (AI) software to analyze photos of plates of food after residents have eaten.

Dear Colleagues,

It is with the deepest sadness that I share the news of the untimely passing of Apostolos Marinakos, a University of Waterloo third-year mechanical engineering student, on Tuesday, January 25.

One of the largest financial institutions in Canada is contributing more than $1 million to help increase diversity in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields at the University of Waterloo.

Scotiabank is using the money to create a variety of scholarships to support students from underrepresented groups as they pursue STEM studies.

Also included in the Scotiabank Future of Talent and Innovation Initiative is support for engineering outreach to racialized students in Grades 1 to 12, as well as the existing Women in Engineering program.

A suggestion by a Waterloo School of Architecture professor to build a synagogue at the site of the largest single massacre of Jews during the Holocaust has developed into a unique liturgical and reflection space visited by people of all faiths.

Seven months after Robert Jan van Pelt mentioned the idea, an outdoor synagogue opened in Babyn Yar, a ravine in the Ukrainian capital city of Kiev where more than 33,000 Jewish men, women and children were murdered on a single day in 1941.

An engineering master’s student and a staff member have received provincial awards of excellence for exceptional contributions on campus, across the community and beyond.

Waterloo mechanical engineering master’s student Lucas Wen Tang (BASc ’21, mechanical engineering) was recognized in the Minister’s Awards of Excellence Rising Star category.

Tang co-founded Lumos, a company that looks to improve human well-being through sleep technology and neuroscience. 

A company that was co-founded by two Waterloo Engineering professors has been recognized by an agency of the United Nations (UN) for its contributions to a state-of-the-art facility to farm crickets as a source of protein.

DarwinAI and the Aspire Food Group, which is leading the initiative, were named to a list of the top 10 projects using artificial intelligence (AI) to advance the UN’s sustainability goals.

Professor Kankar Bhattacharya has been selected as the new chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo.

Bhattacharya, who will take over from interim chair Manoj Sachdev, is scheduled to begin a four-year term May 1.

A professor at Waterloo Engineering collaborated with researchers in New Zealand on the development of a method to disinfect personal protective equipment (PPE) for reuse or recycling.

Bill Anderson, a professor of chemical engineering, lent his expertise on disinfection using ultraviolet light to a multidisciplinary effort triggered by a shortage of PPE early in the COVID-19 pandemic.

A civil and environmental engineering professor at Waterloo Engineering has had his research chair renewed for another five years by the federal government.

James Craig, the Canada Research Chair in Hydrological Modelling and Analysis, will receive $500,000 over five years to continue his work.