It was great to connect with alumni, academic and research partners on the university delegation trip to Asia. We had the opportunity to visit the Chinese Academy of Sciences and sign a new dual degree doctoral program agreement. We also visited Huawei’s global operations headquarters in Shenzhen to launch our Huawei research partnership.
Exciting news for a research project involving two computer science faculty members Jo Atlee and Nancy Day was announced earlier this week. The Autonomoose autonomous vehicle platform project was the first to receive approval to test their innovations on all public roads in Ontario. This interdisciplinary research project aims to:
- Improve self-driving in all weather conditions that are specific to Canada;
- Optimize self-driving for fuel efficiency and reduced emissions; and
- Provide methods to design safe, robust computer based controls for self-driving vehicles.
Congratulations to Math/Business student Colin Behenna, who was named Top Academic All-Canadian. Colin is an exceptional varsity hockey player who is also a strong student.
Congratulations to Jo Atlee for being named one of 45 new Association for Computing Machinery Distinguished Members. ACM recognizes these 45 researchers for their individual contributions to the field of computing.
Raouf Boutaba was awarded an IEEE Communications Society Technical Achievement Award. This award is given to a recipient that is deemed to have made an incredible contribution in the field of data communication infrastructure and network management. Congratulations, Raouf.
I’m also pleased to congratulate the students who distinguished themselves in this year’s Big E and Special K math contests, for upper year and first year students respectively. The winners were Antonio Molina Lovett and Erlang Wiratama Surya.
There will be a ceremony commemorating the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women on December 6, which marks the 27thanniversary of the tragic events that took place in 1989 at l'École Polytechnique de Montréal.
The Women in Math committee invites faculty, staff and postdocs to an interactive workshop Responding to Disrespectful Communication on December 7.
Looking ahead to the new year, registration is now open for the second annual 2-day women’s ideathon Waterloo Women: Ideas, Makers, and Innovators.
January 1, 2017 is the 50th anniversary of our Faculty of Mathematics. Please mark your calendars to join us for a special lunchtime celebration, to be held on January 18th. Details to follow.
Best wishes for a safe and happy holiday season.
Stephen
