News

Friday, June 14, 2019

The 40,000th Faculty of Mathematics alumnus will cross the stage today

$A graduate smiles with his diploma after the ceremony$

Today over the course of two ceremonies, the Faculty of Mathematics added 1,286 alumni for a total of 40,750 in more than 100 countries. We also gave out one award for leadership, one Doctoral Prize, had two valedictorians, handed out six medals, and three Honorary Doctor of Mathematics degrees.

Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Convocation is twice as nice for twin Computer Science graduates

$Orkhan and Elkhan Mammedov$

Elkhan and Orkhan Mammedov’s journey to Convocation started seven years ago, with a school visit. The Faculty of Mathematics and Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing visited the brothers’ home country of Azerbaijan, and instantly captured their attention.

Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Third woman to win Turing Award to receive an honorary doctorate

$Shaffi Goldwasser$

Shafira (Shafi) Goldwasser is one of today’s leading computer scientists, known for her contributions to the foundations of cryptography, privacy, and security. In 2018, Goldwasser became the Director of the world’s leading venue for collaborative research in theoretical computer science, the Simons Institute for Theory of Computing at the University of California, Berkeley.

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

New tool shows that goodwill may trump profit as a work motivator

$Volunteers$

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have found that individuals may be more motivated to do work for their favourite charity than for money.

In a study reviewing the efficacy of a new online work-sharing platform designed to put money into the hands of charities, the researchers discovered that people providing their skills and labour toward a specific task tended to do a better job if they knew their favourite charity rather than themselves would be paid for it.

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Co-founder of bioinformatics to receive an honorary doctorate

$David Sankoff$

Through early work on sequence comparison, RNA structure comparison, and RNA structure, David Sankoff launched the bioinformatics field's strong emphasis on fast algorithms with a provable performance guarantee. Sankoff’s algorithm was a crucial advance in this area. He is recognized as one of the founders of the field of bioinformatics and is the co-author of the first bioinformatics book.

Monday, June 10, 2019

Second woman to win a Turing award will receive an honorary doctorate

$Barbara Liskov$

Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Barbara Liskov, will receive an honorary doctorate of Mathematics at the June 14 Convocation Ceremony.

Thursday, June 6, 2019

Accomplished student prepares for his valedictorian speech and his next chapter

$Valedictorian David Li sits outside the Math and Computers building$

“At the end of the day, Waterloo taught me more than mathematics. It helped me discover what I want to pursue moving forward.”

David Li says he gets by with a little help with his friends.

Saturday, June 1, 2019

Walaa Moursi joins the C&O department

$Walaa Moursi. Photo credit: University of British Columbia$

Photo credit: University of British Columbia, Okanagan

The C&O department is very pleased to welcome Professor Walaa Moursi, its newest faculty member.

Thursday, May 30, 2019

Haonan Duan receives Vector Scholarship in Artificial Intelligence

$Haonan Duan$

Haonan Duan has received a prestigious Vector Scholarship in Artificial Intelligence from the Vector Institute. Valued at $17,500, these master’s-level scholarships recognize promising AI talent in Ontario and support recruitment of top students into AI-related master’s programs to prepare them with the skills and competencies essential to building a strong AI ecosystem.

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Ping Yan's latest work is published by Springer

$Book cover of Quantitative Methods for Investigating Infectious Disease Outbreaks$

Ping Yan's latest work explores systematic treatment of the mathematical underpinnings of work in the theory of outbreak dynamics and their control, covering balanced perspectives between theory and practice including new material on contemporary topics in the field of infectious disease modelling. Learn more about the book.