Dean's Message - January 2018
The 50th year celebrations of the Faculty of Mathematics are now complete. Thank you to everyone who helped us commemorate this milestone in Waterloo and around the world.
During the month of December, we held the final 50th anniversary events. December 1st and 2nd the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science hosted the Advances in Predictive Analytics Conference. Two days later, the Cheriton School of Computer Science invited blogger Cory Doctorow for a public lecture to celebrate 50 years of computer science.
The final event was the Canadian Math Society (CMS) Winter Meeting. In addition to plenary lectures and scientific sessions, the meeting featured:
- A public lecture by former postdoctoral fellow (1980-81) and now President of Southwestern University, Edward B. Burger
- A Dean’s Reception that included welcome messages from the Right Honourable Justin Trudeau and the Honourable Bardish Chagger and an announcement from Dorette Pronk, Chair of the CMS Competitions Committee that the 2018 Canadian Olympiad team will train at the University of Waterloo.
- A second public lecture by former student Richard Hoshino (BMath ’01), the youngest recipient of the Adrien Pouliot award
- An announcement, at the banquet, that the Faculty of Mathematics would sponsor the Canadian Women's Math Olympiad team at the European Girls Mathematical Olympiad.
To mark the 50th anniversary, we created an award of our own, The Faculty of Mathematics Golden Jubilee Research Excellence Award. Congratulations to the inaugural award winners: Matthew Kennedy (Pure Mathematics) and Ruodu Wang (Statistics and Actuarial Science). They will receive their awards along with the 2018 award winners in the fall at the Faculty Reception.
Congratulations go to two of our faculty members in the Cheriton School of Computer Science. Raouf Boutaba, along with postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and international colleagues, won the best paper award at CNSM 2017 and Srinivasan Keshav was elevated to the grade of Senior Member by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Several staff members have received Long Service Awards. We thank the following people for their service to the Faculty of Mathematics:
- 30 years: Debbie Brown, Dani Roloson, Lucy Simpson and Jack Rehder
- 15 years: Carlos Mendes
- 10 years: Jackie Hilts, Terry Bae, Jennifer Doucet, Lindsey Webster
- 5 years: Melissa Cambridge, and Mark Womack
On January 25th, the Faculty of Mathematics will hold the 31st Annual Mathematics Awards banquet. We will welcome several prominent alumni back to campus to receive their Alumni Achievement Medals at the banquet and three of them will give presentations. The faculty will also recognize undergraduate students awarded upper-year scholarships in 2017, joined by the generous donors who sponsor these awards.
The awards banquet is just one of many events planned for January. In addition, StarCon, a two-day software engineering conference starts on January 6th, the first workshop for Waterloo Technovation takes place January 14th, and the CMM-Fields-Inria Workshop on Mathematics for Medicine starts on January 31st.
The faculty continues our strategic planning. On December 15, we held a one-day planning workshop with faculty, staff and students from all sides of our faculty. The energy and engagement in the room made it clear that everyone wants to leverage our existing strengths and increase our impact around the world.
To close, I would like to announce Kevin Hare’s new appointment as the Vice-Dean for the Faculty of Mathematics. This role will support the expanded range of activities in the faculty as we move forward into our second half century. As Kevin was serving as Director, Computational Math upon receiving this appointment, Jeff Orchard will step into that role until June 30, 2020.
Stephen M. WattDean, Faculty of Mathematics - University of Waterloo
