Class notes

Richard Monkman (BMath '81): Longtime Kinaxis CFO Monkman to retire in August 2021. After helping elevate Kinaxis from a little-known software company into a publicly traded leader in its field, Richard Monkman is getting ready to call it a career.

Jennifer Francis (BMath '84): SheBoot looks to narrow widening gender gap in VC funding.

Steven Kaminski (BMath '85): Ottawa's Kaminski family sells stake in fast-growing agricultural fund to Montreal firm. Launched in 2009, Bonnefield now manages more than 134,000 acres of agricultural land worth nearly $1 billion, up from 110,000 acres valued at $750 million just 18 months ago.

Dave MacKay (BMath '87): Corporate Citizen of the Year: Dave McKay’s concern for Main Street guided Canadian banks’ response to the pandemic.

Tim Bennison (MMath '88): Appointed to new Chief Operating Officer at Hothead.

Asif Makhani (BMath '01): Handshake Appoints Industry Veteran Asif Makhani as CTO to Drive Product and Platform Innovation

Pam Tatroff (BMath '07): Is promoted to Associate Vice President, Advisor Digital Strategy at Raymond James Limited.

Kim Tremblay (BMath '84): As if to underscore the region’s cybersecurity significance, Arctic Wolf Networks, one of the region’s biggest security companies, vaulted to unicorn status in October, reaching a US$1.3-billion valuation upon raising a US$200-million Series E investment round. The company was co-founded in 2012 by Kim Tremblay, a University of Waterloo math and computer science graduate. Tech Round Up for October 2020.

Elizabeth Dunn (BMath '88): A feature on Liz Dunn and the work she has been doing through her company Dunn and Hobbes to preserve historic buildings. Urban infill developer Liz Dunn breathes new life into old buildings.

Richard Cook (PhD '93): Was named University Professor in recognition of his outstanding research contributions in the field of Biostatistics. Waterloo’s designation of University Professor acknowledges exceptional scholarly achievement and international pre-eminence.

Ian VanderBurgh (BMath '99): We are happy to announce that Professor Ian VanderBurgh has agreed to be renewed as Director of Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing (CEMC) for another three years. We look forward to the amazing work Professor VanderBurgh, and his team will continue to do in CEMC.

Jesse Chor (BCS '04): Splunk 2021 Predictions: 5G won't hit in 2021 and Biometrics will move into the cloud.

Pooja Viswanathan (BMath '06): Braze Mobility has developed the world's first blind-spot sensor system for wheelchairs, which automatically detects obstacles and provides multi-modal alerts (visual, vibration, and/or audio feedback) to the driver.

Kuljeev Singh (BMath '09): Had a vision to empower restaurateurs to rise above busted toilets and exploding grease traps and to do it without going broke or having to learn HVAC in the process. So he created ResQ; a platform that helps owners manage all of their repair and maintenance operations through a streamlined app connecting them to vetted contractors à la minute. Read more...

Ulkar Akhundzade (BCS '16): Forbes 30 Under 30 for 2021

Christopher Hawthorne (MMath '17): Received the Pure Math Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.

Artem Pasyechnayk (BSE '14): Forbes 30 Under 30 for 2021

John Sawatzky (MMath '18): Received the Pure Math Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.

Caleb Suan (BMath '20): Received the Pure Math Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.

Nicholas Richards (BMath '20): Was recently awarded the K.D. Fryer Medal. Read more...

Yuyu Duan (BMath '20): Was recently awarded the James D. Leslie Undergraduate Prize.

Seda Albayrak: Received the Pure Math Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student.

Ishan Bansal: Was named a 2020 University Finalist for the Alumni Gold Medal for a Master’s student.

Shalev Ben-David (BMath '11): Won the best paper award at the 61st Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science.

Eric Blais (BMath '02): Won the best paper award at the 61st Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science.

Professor Chris Bauch: Was featured in The New York Times for his research in using game theory to model ways of prioritizing vaccinations, to see which saves more lives. Read more...

Ou Dang (MMath '16): Was selected for a renewed scholarship for the year (Statistics and Actuarial Science).

Professor Vivek Goel: Appointed to President, University of Waterloo, to start in July 2021. Professor Goel brings a strong vision for education and the student experience, research and entrepreneurship and the university’s role in grand societal challenges.

Professor Maura Grossman: Received the Shira Scheindlin Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her roles as “a changemaker and an ediscovery scholar whose work on technology-assisted review has been cited around the world,” and “for her role as a special master, mediator, or expert in multiple high-profile federal and state court cases.”

Maura was also named a Global Elite Thought Leader in Litigation by Who’s Who Legal 2020.

Professor Mary Hardy: Was recognized for her dedication and contributions to the Society of Actuaries by being awarded their Distinguished Service Award.

Professor Ihab Ilyas: Was named a 2020 ACM Fellow for his contributions to data cleaning and data integration, which have had significant and lasting impacts, both in shaping the direction of data systems research and in the development of technologies adopted by industry.

Associate Professor Edith Law and graduate student Sangho Suh: Received coverage in ACM TechNews for their use of comic strips to teach coding to novice learners.

Professor Anita Layton: Was named the 2021 Krieger-Nelson Prize recipient for her exceptional contributions to mathematical research with applications ranging from fluid dynamics to biology and medicine.

Wenyuan Li, PhD Student: Was named the 2020-2021 James C. Hickman Scholars.

Professor Ming Li: Received the 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award from CS-Can|Info-Can for his major contributions to the creation of a modern information theory (Kolmogorov complexity) and in shaping the field of Computational Biology.

Yechao Meng, PhD Student: Was named the 2020-2021 James C. Hickman Scholars.

Everest Munro-Zeisberger, 3B: Forbes 30 Under 30 for 2021

Professor Tamer Öszu: Was named a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Tsinghua University.

Professor Luke Postle: Was named the recipient of the 2021 Coxeter-James Prize for his work in the area of graph theory having made ground-breaking progress on many famous conjectures in graph colouring.

Luke has been renewed as a Canada Research Chair in recognition of his contributions in graph theory.

Kyne Santos, 4B Mathematical Finance: A drag queen gets on stage at a bar (pre-COVID-19) and starts singing math formulas to the tune of "Rolling in the Deep" by Adele. Kyne is changing the face of math.

David Saunders: Was appointed the Director of the Centre for Financial Industries at the Fields Institute.

Andrei Serban, 3A: Forbes 30 Under 30 for 2021

Assistant Professor Nashid Shahriar: Was awarded the 2020 Alumni Gold Medal for outstanding academic performance in a doctoral program.

Johnson Shih, 3B CFM: Won the Schulich Strategy Discipline Case Competition with his team of students.

Professor William Slofstra: Received a 2021 Sloan Research Fellowship. Professor Slofstra’s research looks at the mathematical foundations of quantum information theory and especially the mathematics concerning the Tsirelson conjectures and the reformulation of the Connes Embedding Problem in terms of joint conditional probability densities.

Assistant Professor Joel Wallman: Made the highly commended category for the IOP International Quantum Technology Young Scientist Award.

Professor Yeying Zhu: Received NRC funding as part of the Challenge program for her project AI-assisted solutions to network operations automation for remote communities.

Nine of the Faculty of Mathematics professors were named 2020 Vector Institute Faculty Affiliates. The new faculty affiliates are Ihab Ilyas and Gautam Kamath of the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science. The professors returning for a second two-year term as Vector Institute Faculty Affiliates are Ali Ghodsi of the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science and six other professors from the Cheriton School of Computer Science - Yuri Boykov, Maura Grossman, Jesse Hoey, Kate Larson, Jimmy Lin and Olga Veksler.

One scholarship, valued at $2,000 awarded from 2021 to 2025.

One scholarship valued at $2,000. Awarded from 2021 to 2025.  

One scholarship given annually valued at $2,500, awarded from 2021-2024.

Four scholarships valued at $5,400 given annually, awarded from 2021 to 2023.

It is with great sadness we announce the passing of Peter Alexander Curran on January 27th at the age of 69. He will be greatly missed by his wife Susan Curran (DeWolfe), siblings Thomas (Elaine), Jennifer (Colin), and Stephen (Carol), brother-in-law Brian (Fran), sister-in-law Margaret, uncle Geoffrey (Joan), and aunt Josephine, as well as many nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his parents Sheila and Alexander Curran.

We are saddened by the passing of Professor Emeritus Bruce Simpson, who was both a professor in computer science and a chair back when the School was a Department of Computer Science. He passed away on December 11 at age 80. Our thoughts are with his family.