It’s hard to believe it, but Rohan Jayasundera will soon be retiring!
Rohan has been a part of the Physics & Astronomy Department at Waterloo for over half of its existence. In that career, he has been of immeasurable value to the thousands of students he has interacted with.
Rohan first started in 1982 as a Lab demonstrator. He worked from demonstrator to senior demonstrator to lab instructor up until 2000. It was during these last years as lab instructor that he started teaching physics lecture courses. The success of this resulted in him becoming a continuing lecturer in the year 2000.
Rohan is a fantastic teacher, and has long been recognized as one of the finest first year instructors in the department, if not of the Faculty of Science as a whole Rohan’s career in the Physics department has been full of “firsts”. Rohan won the UW distinguished teaching award in 1999, which was the first time a Science Staff member won this award. Rohan was the first Faculty Associate for what is now called the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE). In 2007, Rohan won the prestigious Leadership in Faculty Teaching (LIFT) award, which was a Provincial teaching award of which only 100 were awarded from all across Ontario (and only 2 from UW). Rohan’s teaching excellence led to his being named the first Senior Teaching Fellow for the Faculty of Science, a post he held till 2016. In 2015 Rohan was awarded the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) Teaching award. It is this last award which really stands out the most because this award was driven by student nomination with absolutely no faculty involvement. In fact, Rohan had remarked that he was not even sure if any of his colleagues knew he had won it!
This remarkable list of accolades is a direct result of the care and effort that he put into not just his teaching, but in all aspects of education.
Rohan introduced formal lab evaluations, teaching retreats, student mentors, and the excellence program – just to name a few things aimed at improving the student education experience at Waterloo.
When asked what he would miss most about the department, Rohan replied that the support he received from all levels including the department chairs, and the administrative staff, but most of all, the students.
Rohan is a special educator who has touched the lives of thousands of students and has left them with a positive memory of their time at the University of Waterloo. As he now can spend more time with his family, we wish him all the best and thank him for his remarkable service to the physics department, to the faculty of science, and the University as a whole.
Join us on December 5 at 4:00pm in the Institute for Quantum Computing Main Atrium to celebrate Rohan's remarkable career!
