Class Notes Spring/Summer 2026

Jonathan Schaeffer (MMath ’80, PhD ’86): Jonathan Schaeffer is the Co-founder of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii). Alberta recently announced that it will be investing $10 million into the Amii to advance the integration of AI into healthcare. Read more

Todd Hewlin (BMath ’90): Todd Hewlin was appointed as the President of Future Secure AI. Read more.

Wai Ting (Wendy) Kei (BMath ’91): Wendy Kei was appointed to General Fusion's Board of Directors and also named General Fusion's Audit Committee Chair. Read more.

Helen Poon (BMath ’92): Helen Poon is the Head of Engineering at MyStoria, a company that uses AI to empower patients navigating reproductive health care. The company recently raised about $1.6 million in seed funding. Read more.

Jeffrey Shiner (BMath ’92): Jeffrey Shiner is the Executive Chair of the Board of Directors at 1Password, which provides businesses with control over their confidential business information. 1Password recently released its Unified Access Platform to assist companies in deploying AI agents. Read more.

1Password and OpenAI partner to secure coding agent Codex. Read more.

Jodie Wallis (BMath ’93): Jodie Wallis is the Global Chief AI Officer at Manulife. She was featured in the Globe and Mail’s Canada’s Best Executives 2026. Read more.

Angelina Hoang (BMath ’94): Angelina Hoang is Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Meridian Credit Union. Meridian Credit Union was recognized in the 2026 CB Innovation Awards. Read more.

Michele Mosca (BMath ’95): Michele Mosca is a Professor in the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization at the University of Waterloo and the Co-Founder of the Institute for Quantum Computing. He was recently featured in an article discussing quantum pioneers Gilles Brassard and Charles Bennett. Read more.

He was also featured in an article exploring quantum computing and cybersecurity threats. Read more.

Cindy Hung (BMath ’96, ’97): Cindy Hung is the SVP of Finance & Corporate Operations at Hydrostor, an energy company that develops and operates utility-scale, long-duration energy storage systems. Recently, Hydrostor was named to Time's World's Top GreenTech Companies of 2026 list. Read more.

Kyle McCrindle (BMath ’99): Kyle McCrindle is the Co-Founder and CTO of Denvr, a Canadian-based cloud computing and AI infrastructure company. The company was recently profiled in The Logic. Read more.

Brendan Sterne (BMath ’00): Brendan Sterne is the Chief Product Officer at Vention, a cloud-based Manufacturing Automation Platform that allows users to automate their industrial equipment. Vention was listed on BetaKit’s Most Ambitious 2026. Read more.

Dorita Ávila Rojas (BMath ’05): Dorita Rojas is a scientist and writer. She explored the overlooked life of José Domingo Espinar in her 600-page historical novel. Read more.

Wesley George (BMath ’08): Wesley George is the Co-founder and COO of Featherless AI, a serverless AI inference platform that allows the user to deploy open-source AI models. Featherless AI raised $20 million USD in a Series A funding round. Read more.

Jonathan Held (BMath ’08): Jonathan Held was also recently appointed as an Independent Director at Nine Mile Metals LTD. Read more.

Paul Klicnik (BCS ’08): Paul Klicnik is the Co-Founder & CTO at Relay, a fintech company that specializes in innovative digital banking. Relay secured $50 million USD from Silicon Valley’s General Catalyst to accelerate customer acquisition. Read more.

Nathan Hoel (BCS ’08): Nathan Hoel is the Co-founder and CTO of BinSentry, which works to advance agricultural AI. BinSentry was recognized on THRIVE's Top 50 List for leading innovation in global agriculture technology. Read more.

BinSentry was also listed on BetaKit’s Most Ambitious 2026 for its work in agricultural innovation. Read more.

Stephanie Simmons (BMath ’08): Stephanie Simmons is the Founder and Chief Quantum Officer at Photonic, a company that is advancing quantum technology. Phototonic was also featured in Betakit’s Most Ambitious 2026 for its work in supporting Canadian national security and sovereignty. Read more.

Troy Vasiga (BMath ’95, MMath ’96, PhD ’08): Troy Vasiga, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Admissions and Outreach at the University of Waterloo, was quoted in a Toronto Star article that discussed student behaviours in the age of AI. Read more.

Trevor van Arragon (BMath ’09): Trevor van Arragon was appointed Head of Canadian Banking at TD. Read more.

Cory Kapser (PhD ’10): Cory Kapser is Head of AI at Neo Financial, a Canadian fintech company. Neo Financial was the winner under the Financial Services category for the 2026 CB Innovation Awards. Read more.

Arthur Jen (BMath ’15): Arthur Jen is a Co-Founder and CTO of Patlytics, an AI-powered platform that helps support the patent lifecycle. It was featured among the top 30 early stage startups in 2026 by Business Insider. Read more.

Jal Jalali Ekram (BMath ’16): Jal Jalali Ekram is the Founding Engineer at Created by Humans, AI rights licensing platform and marketplace. It was featured among the top 30 early stage startups in 2026 by Business Insider. Read more.

Ruslan Nikolaev (BCS ’20): Ruslan Nikolaev is the Co-Founder of Float, a Toronto-based financial technology (fintech) company. Float launched agentic AI to simplify corporate credit cards. Read more.

Jiahui (Paul) Li (BCS ’20): Paul Li is a Co-Founder of OpenBuilder, a "vibe coding" platform. OpenBuilder raised $2.2 million in funding during Y Combinator’s Fall 2025 batch. Read more.

Sina Kalantarzadeh (MMath ’25): Sina is currently an algorithmic graph theory researcher and a postdoctoral student at the University of Waterloo. He won a Governor General's Gold Medal in 2026 for his thesis's contribution to the optimization of integer programming and minimum multicut problems in networks. Read more.

Nikhita Joshi (MMath ’20, PhD ’25): Nikhita Joshi is a postdoctoral fellow at Paris-Sanclay University. She won a Governor General's Gold Medal in 2026 for her research in human-computer interaction. Read more.

Jordan Dearsley (BSE N/A): Jordan Dearsley is the CEO and Co-Founder of Vapi, which specializes in building enterprise voice AI systems. Vapi raised $50M during its Series B round and reached 1 billion calls. Read more

Nikhil Kumar Gupta (BSE N/A): Nikhil Kumar Gupta is the CTO and Co-Founder of Vapi, which specializes in building enterprise voice AI systems. Vapi raised $50M during its Series B round and reached 1 billion calls. Read more

Griffin Keglevich (BMath N/A): Griffin Keglevich is a Co-Founder of Float, which is a banking platform for Canadian businesses. Float launched agentic AI to simplify corporate credit cards. Read more

Brad Bell (BMath N/A): Brad Bell is the President and CEO of Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) which is a non-profit organization supporting humanitarian aviation. This organization was featured in the news for joining the emergency response to the DRC Ebola Outbreak. Read more

Atif Khan (PhD N/A): Atif Khan is the CTO at DataBraid, which was recently featured in an article discussing its securing of 1.9 million USD in funding. This company is set to address a phenomenon known as "portal hopping" which is an inefficiency in the insurance broker world. Read more

Pascal Poupart and Luis Ricardez-Sandoval receive $480k grant from BMO and Mitacs

Anita Layton and her team examining how estrogen helps protect women from high blood pressure

Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science hosts Florence Nightingale Day

International Women’s Day: Celebrating women researchers and entrepreneurs

Q&A with new CIFAR AI Chair Marina Meila

Computer science co-ops elevate pediatric care

Top AI coding tools make mistakes one in four times

Three students receive Graduate Research Excellence Awards

Ana Crisan receives $250k to develop collaborative AI model for cancer research

In Memoriam: Dr. Ron Mullin (1936-2026)

Is software engineering dead? A Q&A with Dr. Mei Nagappan

Cheriton researchers create tool to automate bug reproduction tests

CFI support expands access to nation’s digital historical archive

Math and Environment students solve real-world problems in interdisciplinary capstone course

Cameron Seth wins Totzke Trophy

Waterloo students and alumni weigh in on AI’s impact on the future of computer sciences

CIBC funding supports PhD sponsorship for AI research at the University of Waterloo

Matthew Scott receives Human Frontier Science Program grant for mitochondria research

"Waddleloo" app helps students track geese on campus

Cheriton School of Computer Science alum Matei Zaharia receives 2025 ACM Prize in Computing 

Melissa Stadt wins Cecil Graham Doctoral Dissertation Award

AI for diabetes: Waterloo team wins Social Impact Award at CUCAI 2026

University of Waterloo names N. Asokan a University Professor

Computer science student discusses Oceanica, a Latin American–based organization that focuses on ocean literacy and conservation

Gautam Kamath wins EATCS 2026 Presburger Award

Anita Layton named Fellow of American Physiological Society

Yuzhe You presents at Adobe Summit 2026

PhD candidate Vasisht Duddu named MLCommons Rising Star for 2026

Yizhou Zhang receives 2026 AITO Dahl–Nygaard Prize

Math researchers receive NSERC G7 Countries Alliance International Catalyst Quantum grants

Software engineering researchers win ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award at FORGE 2026

Dr. Paul-Hermann Balduf collaborating on quantum research from Germany to Canada

Marina Meila appointed Canada Research Chair in Reliable Structure Discovery 

Raouf Boutaba appointed Canada Research Chair in Network Intelligence 

Maura Grossman spoke in The OpenAI lawsuit became a master class in what not to put in writing

Mars Xiang and Max Jiang jointly win 2026 Germain-Erdős Undergraduate Award in Mathematical Research 

Gordon McNicol is currently completing research on the potential role of Vitamin C in mitigating digestion-related cancer risk

Anita Layton is currently completing research on the potential role of Vitamin C in mitigating digestion-related cancer risk

Ryusuke Sugimoto receives multiple prestigious dissertation awards 

Waterloo Technovation showcases girl-powered technology

Computer Science PhD alumna Claudia Maria Bauzer Medeiros receives 2026 ACM Presidential Award

Jun Liu receives an NRC collaboration grant for quantum computing research

CS students win prestigious Doctoral Prizes

Jian Zhao receives 2025 Early Career Research Award from CS-Can | Info-Can 

Sina Kalantarzadeh receives Governor General’s Gold Medal

Gautam Kamath and collaborators awarded 2026 Gödel Prize

Nikhita Joshi awarded prestigious Governor General’s Gold medal 

Systems and networking researchers win NOMS 2026 Best Paper Award 

It is with great sadness that we convey the news of the death of James T. Treleaven who passed on February 9^th, 2026.

We are sad to announce that on March 9^th, 2026, Michael P. Morrissey passed away.

John Rakos passed away peacefully on February 13^th, 2026.

With sorrow, we share the passing of Douglas V. Lounsbury on January 7^th, 2026.

Dilip K. Banerji passed away peacefully on February 9^th, 2026.

It is with great sadness that we convey the news of the death of Donald A. McMurchy on January 30^th, 2026.

We honour the memory of Dr. Ronald C. Mullin, the first graduate of the UW Mathematics program and mathematics professor, who passed away peacefully on March 6^th, 2026.

We are sad to announce that on February 1^st, 2026, Gordon K. Stiles passed away.

We announce with deep sorrow the passing of Christine M. Stanczyk on February 17^th, 2026.

With sorrow, we share the passing of Nadia V. Ursacki on March 21^st, 2026.

John E. Koenka passed away peacefully at the Michael Garron Hospital on December 28^th, 2025.

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Indira A.M. Mitra who passed on January 21^st, 2026.

With sorrow, we announce the passing of Glynn Linnard on March 17^th, 2026.

We are sad to announce that on September 27^th, 2025, Glen A. Larson passed away.

Brian VanHeesch passed away peacefully on June 23^rd, 2025 at the age of 55.

Ray Waechter of Walkerton, Ontario, passed away peacefully on March 13^th, 2026.