It’s been more than a year since Covid 19 landed on our shores and disrupted our lives. Following public health guidelines, we decamped last April and have since carried on remotely. Our research labs returned to service on a limited basis in early summer. Only a few upper-year undergraduate laboratories have convened in person. Our faculty and staff have done a remarkable job teaching and researching remotely. Nevertheless, we will continue to operate following public health guidelines until the pandemic has calmed and we return to a new normal. Through all of this, reaching out to you, our alumni, students, and friends remains for us a priority. Our Entangler editorial staff worked diligently to get this volume to you as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, the added strain from pivoting to on-line teaching prevented us from getting this volume to you sooner. I hope you will find it worth the wait.
With this backdrop, welcome to the March 2021 volume of The Entangler. Please read about our rising stars of Physics & Astronomy, individuals of exceptional promise and talent who are making the world a better place. We report on the success of the inaugural Schrodinger’s Hack, the first hackathon hosted exculsively by students in the Department of physics & Astronomy. I was thrilled to be asked to serve as a judge, and I was inspired by how much was accomplished in only a few days of remote hacking. The department has a strong history at this sort of thing. Physics & Astronomy alum Kartik Talwar cofounded Hack the North, one of the largest hackathons in North America. All this while working on his physics degree. You may recall reading about his successful adventures in the April 2019 Entangler. I am particularly pleased to read about another successful Physics & Astronomy graduate, Farnoud Kazemzadeh. Farnoud received his BSc in 2008 and went on to receive a PhD in Engineering. His thesis research combined with his Waterloo academic genes drove him to found two successful startups. Farnoud was my first undergraduate research student after arriving Waterloo. We published a paper together describing how massive black holes power the nuclei of galaxies. The thrill and inspiration I felt as I read about Farnoud in this issue of The Entangler is hard to describe. Farnoud, like many others, is an outstanding example of how a Physics degree lays the foundation for success in almost any endeavor. This and so much more to read about in this volume of The Entangler. Enjoy!
