Current students

A biotechnology company co-founded by a Waterloo Engineering alumnus has been awarded almost $300,000 in government funding to develop a portable diagnostic test for COVID-19.

Nicoya, a Kitchener-based provider of advanced analytical instruments for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, grew out of a Capstone Design project by nanotechnology engineering student Ryan Denomme (BASc ’10, MASc ’12).

The funding is part of a challenge issued by the Public Health Agency of Canada and the National Research Council of Canada.

Serapis Labs develops prototype for a testing kit that is simple enough for anyone to use

By Alana Rigby and Brian Caldwell University of Waterloo

Monica Hoang had no idea earlier this year that she’d be spending the last few months of her PhD working on the design of a COVID-19 testing kit.

The School of Pharmacy student moved back to her hometown when the University of Waterloo decided to go online for the spring term and planned to do her PhD defence digitally.

Today, two prominent Waterloo scientists were among the 60 exceptional scientists selected to be Fellows and Foreign Members of the Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s national academy of sciences. 

Chemist Linda Nazar, a WIN member, and Physicist Donna Strickland were both elected for their outstanding contributions to their field and scientific understanding.

In a world where just about everyone has a smartphone it also means that almost everyone has become an amateur photographer. In 2019, more than 657 billion smartphone photographs were taken – and many of them blurry. But help is on the way. A promising new student venture, Scope, is hoping their invention of a new type of optical zoom lens system with electronically tunable optical power will help people take better photos while reducing the battery use, costs, and processing power of smartphones.