News

Every minute matters when someone has a stroke, and a new study from the Department of Management Science and Engineering (MSE) is helping identify what’s standing in the way of faster, life-saving care. The study was conducted by researchers in the department’s Waterloo Analytics and Optimization Lab (WANOPT), including Rahenda Khoeir, a doctoral researcher, and Dr. Fatma Gzara, an MSE professor and co-director of WANOPT. Partnering with the Waterloo Regional Health Network (WHRN), the team analyzed 218 acute stroke cases in Waterloo Region over three years, examining door-to-needle time – the gap between a patient’s arrival at hospital and treatment with clot-busting medication.

"This project allowed us to look at stroke care from multiple perspectives," says Gzara. Drawing on both historical patient records and direct feedback from frontline staff, she and her team were able to see how stroke care actually unfolds day to day, not just on paper. Khodeir points to the principle driving the urgency: "time is brain" — every minute that passes without treatment costs the patient more brain tissue. Go to Researchers identify barriers to faster stroke treatment for the full story on the findings and what’s next for the research.

A new entrance scholarship has been established to support incoming students in the Management Engineering program and to recognize the lasting contributions of a founding faculty member.

The Shoukry Saleh Memorial Scholarship for Management Engineering recognizes academic excellence and reflects the lasting impact of Professor Shoukry Saleh, a founding member and former department chair of what is now the Department of Management Science and Engineering.

A paper co-authored by Management Science and Engineering professor Lukasz Golab and his Data Science Master’s student Anastasiia Avksientieva won the best demo paper award at the 2025 International Conference on Extending Data Base Technology (EDBT).  

Management Sciences professors Samir Elhedhli, Fatma Gzara, and Mehrdad Pirnia were recently featured in an informative event that delivered practical insights for industry on the application of artificial intelligence to address supply chain challenges.

Dr. Kourosh Malek, a Management Sciences PhD alumnus and currently Head of AI and Data Analytics at Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH was also a featured panelist. 

This year, along with most other things around the world, our Management Sciences Annual Spring Awards ceremony was abruptly put on hold due to the covid-19 global crisis.

That can't stop Management Sciences from celebrating the achievements of our undergraduate Management Engineers (MGTE) and our Management Sciences graduate students (MMSc, MASc & PhD)!

Help us Congratulate all our winners!

A management engineering Capstone Design project that explored the need for pay-and-display parking machines in Toronto took top prize in an international competition. Milan Preet Kaur, a recent management engineering graduate, presented her team’s Capstone project at the 2019 Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS) Undergraduate Operations Research Prize Competition, which took place at the 

Molly Beckel, a graduate of the 2013 management engineering class was recently honoured with a 2018 Young Women in Energy award. Molly works as a Facilities Integrity and Reliability engineer for the TransCanada Corporation. She is active in the energy industry and serves as Calgary Chapter Chair for the Young Pipeliners Association of Canada, a pipeline advocacy group. 

Read the full article here.

Congratulations Molly!

FEM in STEM, founded by first year Management Engineering student Mylene Tu, was one of four early-stage Waterloo student-run startup winners in the Velocity $5K competition.

Umair Shah, a lecturer in the Department of Management Sciences has adopted an innovative approach to bridge the ‘industry-academe’ divide by piloting the use of the Riipen  platform at the University of Waterloo.

Research on help-seeking and help-giving conducted by Management Sciences alum Mahdi Roghanizad during his PhD studies was recently featured in the Harvard Business Review.