Alexander Wong

Graduate PhD Systems Design

Alexander Wong, PhD Systems Design Engineering and Alumni Gold Medal winner 2010
As the adage goes "a picture is worth a thousand words." And no one knows that better than Alexander Wong, the university's Alumni Gold Medal winner for the year's top PhD graduate.

Since graduating in October 2010 with his doctorate in systems design engineering, he has worked as a researcher alongside radiologists and clinical scientists at Toronto's Sunnybrook Research Institute, developing new computerized approaches to prostate cancer detection.

Wong, an NSERC postdoctoral fellow, uses computerized multiparametric cancer information taken from MRI acquisitions and combines it to develop comprehensive data. Using that data, radiologists are able to detect cancer earlier.

Wong is no stranger to original research having published an impressive 80-plus papers. He attributes his time at Waterloo, which included completing computer engineeringundergraduate and masterÕs degrees, as contributing to his success today. "Waterloo has a strong co-op program and industrial ties," says Wong. "That helped me make the transition from research to something operational and practical."