News

Aiping Yu, a professor of chemical engineering, is one of six nation-wide recipients of 2020 E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowships for highly promising researchers. Her selection was announced today by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. A virtual awards ceremony is scheduled for this afternoon.

The prestigious fellowships include $250,000 in research grants, and up to $90,000 a year to universities to free winners from teaching and administrative duties so they can concentrate on research full-time.

A researcher at Waterloo Engineering has been awarded $800,000 in federal funding to develop compostable personal protective equipment (PPE) and antimicrobial coatings to help fight COVID-19.

The common belief is that electron microscopy (EM) can only be used on dry samples because of the vacuum inside the microscope’s column. This is no longer the case, as researchers can now visualize fully solvated nanoscale objects in liquids such as water from cryogenic to room temperature conditions. Room temperature in-liquid observations are achieved by squeezing the sample into a nanofluidic chip with a very narrow with a very narrow gap (down to 50nm) between two ultrathin membranes, so that the electron beam can get through the “sandwich” and reach the image detector.

As Canada’s largest nanotechnology institute, committed to United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) actively celebrates emerging leaders in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology. These individuals from across the globe whose research aligns with one or more of our thematic areas and the UN SDGs are eligible for the WIN Rising Star Award in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.

Innovation, research and discovery are key factors in maintaining and growing Canada’s socio-economic well-being, to benefit all Canadians. The Canada Research Chair Program is investing $140 million toward 182 new and renewed Chairs at 34 institutions. The University of Waterloo had three chairs renewed, including Chemistry's Derek Schipper.

What if you could spray away COVID-19? That’s the idea behind an anti-viral surface coating being developed in a collaborative project between by researchers at The Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) within the University of Waterloo and SiO2 Innovation Labs. The coating will kill the COVID-19 virus immediately upon contact with any surface.