Alumni in the news and getting noticed…
BCBusiness highlighted two BC-based Waterloo grads as part of their STEM POWER series: BMath ’04: Angela Robert, co-founder and CEO of Conquer Mobile, which has developed a tool (now in use in 30 North American hospitals) that uses simulation training via an iPad and virtual reality to familiarize operating room nurses with surgical instruments and procedures.
BMath ’82: Judi Hess, CEO of Copperleaf Technologies, is working with decision analytics software in support of utilities and critical infrastructure, and supporting a growing employee base.
BMath ’75: Pat Meredith and her co-author James L. Darroch were awarded the $50,000 Donner Prize for Stumbling Giants: Transforming Canada's Banks for the Information Age, published by Rotman-UTP Publishing, an imprint of University of TorontoPress.
BMath ’86: Dan MacKenzie’s HealthIM software is making an impact in more communities, as police officers in Smith Falls, ON, and Regina and Saskatoon, SK join the list of forces employing the tool.
PhD ’89: Ricardo Baeza-Yates has been recognized for his entrepreneurship in computer engineering with the Ángela Ruiz Robles Award.
BMath ’90: An incredible 10th marathon finish for John Young! His tenth race (and the story behind it) was covered in the Toronto Star.
BMath '91: Caisse leads $47-million funding round for smart-thermostat maker ecobee - Co-founded by Mark Malchiondo. The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is lining up behind the Toronto-based company, co-leading a $47-million funding round with AGL Energy Ltd. and Business Development Bank of Canada, capping off a total investment this year of $127-million for the smart-thermostat maker.
MMath ‘04: Congratulations to Dinah Davis on her promotion to VP of R&D at Arctic Wolf Networks.
PhD '05: Ahmed Hassan is building a strong reputation for original research. He has been recognized with the NSERC 2018 E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship, awarded to enhance the career development of outstanding and highly promising university faculty.
MMath ‘06: Congratulations to Jorge Zuloaga, who was named Senior Director of Data Sciences at Utah-based startup Big Squid, Inc in May.
PhD ’15: Zhihan Gao's paper On the metric s-t path traveling salesman problem was selected by SIAM Review in its SIGEST section, which contains an outstanding paper of general interest that has previously appeared in one of SIAM's specialized journals.
BASc ’16 Computer Engineering: Ali Asaria, founder and CEO of Tulip, appeared in iMore, as he sat down for a mentoring session with a Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) participant.
MMath ’16: In recognition for her work creating smart and transparent systems as a data scientist at Thomson Reuters Labs, Hella Hoffmann won the Rising Star Award at the Waters Technology Women in Technology and Data Awards in London.
Kudos!
How many U of W grads have won Oscars??
BEng ’77, BMath ’81: Kim Davidson accepted an OSCAR this year on behalf of Side Effects software from the Scientific And Technical Awards division of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. The Academy Award of Merit (Oscar statuette) was presented to Side Effects for the creation and development of the Houdini visual effects and animation system. The team at Side Effects has been working for 30 years to create this innovative software system that has become the film industry’s standard for bringing natural phenomena, destruction and other digital effects to the big screen.
The Oscar was presented to Davidson, co-founder and CEO of Side Effects software, by Sir Patrick Stewart on February 10th in Beverly Hills, and was shown again on the television broadcast of the 90th Academy Awards on March 4th.
Davidson is a former recipient of the J.W. Graham Medal in Computing and Innovation. For several years, Side Effects has sponsored the Side Effects Software Scholarship at the University of Waterloo and employed numerous graduates and co-op students.
MMath ‘78: The Lieutenant Governor of Ontraio appointed Chunlail Doobay to a two-year term as York Regional Police Services’ newest Board member.
BMath ‘81: New Gold gained a BMath in March when Peggy Mulligan was appointed to its Board of Directors.
BMath ’81: Brian Burns is putting his mathematical mind to work as the new treasurer for the town of Perth, ON.
PhD ’88: Charmaine Dean, now VP Research at University of Waterloo delivered the keynote address at the University of Waterloo’s annual International Women’s Day Dinner, highlighting the importance of recognizing how far women have come to obtain equity and stature, and to recognize there’s still a long way to go.
MMath ’95: In April, Barbara Zvan was named as a Member of the Government of Canada’s Expert Panel on Sustainable Finance.
BMath ’01: Congratulations to Chris Brawn & his family on the birth of a son, Maksim, born in May.
BMath ‘01: Pangea Money Transfer has named Shafiq Shariff VP of Product.
BMath ’01: Welcome to another future Mathie! It’s a baby girl for Singapore-based Jon Kwan and family!
PhD ’02: Erik Demaine developed self-folding, printable origami robots that could be a first step to downloadable smartphones and biomedical devices.
BMath ’04: Co-founder Ray Reddy and his Toronto-based startup Ritual Technologies Inc., an online ordering service that speeds up the coffee and lunch-run experience for big-city workers, raised US$70 million in financing led by Canadian venture capital firm Georgian Partners. The latest funding, which values Ritual at more than US$300 million, comes less than one year after it raised US$43.5 million and was spurred on by unsolicited investor interest.
BMath ’06: Pooja Viswanathan, CEO and co-founder of Braze Mobility turned heads at H2i's HealthEdge Challenge! Braze, which uses sensors to help motorized wheelchair users avoid collisions with the obstacles that surround them, was one of four startups that took home prize money at the event.
BMath ’07: Congratulations to Mike Jutan and partner Michal on the birth of their little girl, who arrived in February, right after Mike received an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences award for his work.
BMath ’17: Recent grad Alexander Mistakidis Founder of Gamelynx, raised 1.2 million to make e-sports games on mobile.
In Memorium:
Sylvia Osborn, passed away May 23. Sylvia received her PhD in 1977, for her thesis entitled “Normal Forms for Relational Data Bases,” jointly supervised by Ian Munro and Frank Tompa. Since then, she had been on faculty at Western and active in the database and access control communities. She often came to seminars at Waterloo and encouraged her students to come as well. We will miss her.
Of note:
We celebrated 50 years of the Math and Computing building this May, and thank everyone who sent us their favourite memories!
Google provided our Women in Computer Science program with a $400,000 grant to develop long-term programming for girls aged 10 to 18, and create a permanent space for Technovation.
Anita Layton joins the Department of Applied Mathematics as a Canada 150 Research Chair on July 1.
Faculty member Tamer Özsu and prof Edward Lank were named the 2018–2021 David R. Cheriton Faculty Fellows. Tamer was also named University Professor at our Convocation ceremony in June.
Ric Holt and Don Cowan were honoured with Lifetime Achievement Awards at the CS-Can/Info-Can AGM in Toronto.
Khuzaima Daudjee, a professor with the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, was recognized as a 2018 Senior Member by both ACM the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
