Future students

As the Government of Canada focuses on responding to the challenges of COVID-19, it also recognizes the invaluable contributions of Canadian researchers in the natural sciences and engineering. That is why the Government continues to support the discovery research being done at Canadian universities to help build the foundation for innovation and economic growth. 

A WIN member has won $265,000 in federal backing to develop a palm-sized device capable of detecting COVID-19 infection within 30 minutes.

Carolyn Ren, a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering and WIN Member, will lead the one-year project by a team that includes professors Emmanuel Ho (also a WIN member) of the School of Pharmacy at Waterloo and fellow WIN member and Keith Fowke of the University of Manitoba.

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.