News archive - 2020

Thursday, December 24, 2020

The pragmatist

$Alex Hoff$

Like thousands of other business leaders across Canada, Alex Hoff (BMath ’04) reckoned with the harsh financial reality of a global pandemic at the beginning of 2020. “As a leadership team, we had to scale back and make tough hiring decisions once we realized that we couldn’t grow as quickly as anticipated,” he shared.

Friday, December 18, 2020

Driving social impact

$Jinjiang J.J. Lian$

Jinjiang ‘J.J.’ Lian first realized he wanted to become a data scientist while working as a data manager for clinical research at a university healthcare facility in the US. “I noticed that many healthcare workers lacked the skill set to collect and interpret patient data correctly, which negatively impacted patient care,” he recalls. “I decided that whether I ended up in healthcare, tech, or another industry altogether, I wanted to use my data skills to help people.”

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Using AI to clear elective surgery backlog during COVID-19 pandemic

$Doctors performing a surgery$

AI models can optimize health-care delivery to help offset the backlog of elective surgeries caused by COVID-19.

In a new study led by University of Waterloo student Natasha Rozario, machine learning was used to create customized models to optimize the efficiency of operating room (OR) booking times. The model enables a 40 per cent increase in the frequency of ORs running on time.

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Mining footprints

$Mei Nagappan$

Professor Mei Nagappan spends most of his time following digital footprints to see where they lead. “The goal of our research is to make the life of a software engineer slightly easier tomorrow than it is today,” he explained.

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

“Coding strip” uses comic strip to teach coding

$Sangho Suh, a PhD student in Waterloo’s David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science$

Researchers have found a way to use comic strips to teach coding to novice learners.

Coding strips utilize comics to present programming concepts in a more accessible way. They chose comics because it is a medium well-known for its ability to explain complicated concepts and processes effectively through visual storytelling.