This June, we proudly welcomed 1,141 new alumni, as degrees were conferred over the course of two convocation ceremonies, and our students moved on to the next adventure. These graduates join a community of 38,882 math alumni around the world. Next year our family will expand to 40,000! We continue to build our connections with you, share your stories, and celebrate your accomplishments.
We had the pleasure of presenting several honours as part of our Math Convocation: Dave McKay, Anand Pillay and Rob Tibshirani were awarded honorary doctorates; Tamer Özsu received the designation University Professor; and alumnus Alex Nicolaou received the prestigious J.W. Graham Medal.
Congratulations as well to our Governor General Silver Medal winner Shouzhen (Bailey) Gu, who graduated with an impressive 99% average, and to Zhengxu (Billy) Jin, who received the Alumni Gold Medal in recognition of his academic achievements.
In addition to celebrating our students and alumni, we also extend our congratulations to faculty and researchers recognized at this years’ President’s Reception for Excellence in Teaching and Research. We applaud each of the 23 award honourees, and thank them for their on-going dedication to our faculty.
This spring, we traveled to Asia and Bermuda to meet with alumni, and to talk about the work our researchers are doing in the fields of cybersecurity and privacy, fintech, and artificial intelligence. Thank you to everyone who joined us at events in London and Boston, as well.
In April, we made headlines when we proudly welcomed Minister of Innovation Navdeep Bains to campus for the opening of Waterloo.ai. Lead in part by co-director Peter van Beek (David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science), Waterloo.ai is a cross-disciplinary institute that will bring together more than 100 faculty members to tackle practical and fundamental problems brought to them by partners in business, government, and the non-profit sector.
The Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing (CEMC) continues its work to encourage young women to love math and computer science, including the CEMC Workshop in CS for Young Women (May 12-19) and Think About Math in Vancouver (May 26). This initiative is supported across our faculty. On May 5, the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science hosted GIRLsmarts4tech, an outreach program to inspire girls in grades 7 and 8 to explore technology with the generous support of SAP. A week later, females between the ages of 10-18 made their final pitches to judges at the Technovation Waterloo Regional Pitch Event. We will continue these efforts, as we know that mathematics outreach, in the broad sense, is one of the most significant ways we can contribute to the future.
In June, we paid tribute to Dr. V.P. Godambe, a cherished member of the Waterloo community and a pioneer in the foundations of inference in survey sampling. His enthusiasm for ideas and his infectious laughter is greatly missed. In addition to celebrating his life, we proudly unveiled a new seating area outside our M3 building which was generously gifted in his name.
Many of you have fond memories of the Math and Computing (MC) building here on campus. In June, we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of our flagship facility, and we thank everyone who took the time to share their thoughts and well-wishes in person, and online.
We took advantage of other opportunities to have fun and celebrate. On March 8th, we indulged in cupcakes for International Women’s Day, as well as participated in a fun photo booth. Many of you will remember lining up with your fellow Mathies to enjoy a slice of pie on March 14 – this year our volunteers served 1,384 pieces of pie. We hope you took some time to celebrate too.
We hope that you enjoy this issue of Math e-Ties, and please do stay in touch.
With best wishes,
Stephen M. Watt
Dean, Faculty of Mathematics
P.S. Please let Mark Womack, Senior Advancement Officer, know if there is something you would like to see in future editions.
