From the UW Daily Bulletin:
At 2:00 p.m., 123 students from Environment and 514 students from Mathematics, including Computing and Financial Management, will receive their degrees.
Bearing the mace will be Jean Andrey, Dean of the Faculty of Environment.
Birgit Moscinski will sing the national anthem.
David
L.
Donoho
will
receive
an
Honorary
Doctor
of
Mathematics
and
address
Convocation. Donoho
is
the
Anne
T.
and
Robert
M.
Bass
Professor
of
the
Humanities
and
Sciences
and
a
Professor
of
Statistics
at
the
University
of
California,
Berkeley,
and
is
widely
regarded
as
being
one
of
the
greatest
statisticians
of
his
generation.
His
pioneering
work
has
contributed
to
the
development
of
many
fields
such
as
statistics,
applied
mathematics,
and
signal
processing.
His
contributions
include
the
modern
theory
of
statistics
by
developing
optimal
statistical
estimation
methods
in
the
presence
of
noise,
and
efficient
techniques
for
sparse
representation
and
recovery
in
large
and
high-dimensional
data-sets,
which
have
had
a
deep
impact
on
the
field.
He
is
one
of
the
most
cited
mathematicians
and
statisticians
of
our
time,
having
published
more
than
250
high
quality
journal
papers
with
the
top
ten
papers
having
been
cited
more
than
50,000
times.
In
2012,
he
became
a
member
of
the
United
States
National
Academy
of
Sciences
and
also
Fellow
of
the
American
Mathematical
Society.
In
2013,
he
became
a
Shaw
Prize
Laureate.
David DeVries will receive the K.D. Fryer Gold Medal, which is given for high academic standing in mathematics together with good student citizenship.
John Doucette and Hadi Hosseini will receive the Amit and Meena Chakma Awards for Exceptional Teaching by a Student.
Doucette,
a
doctoral
candidate
at
the
David
R.
Cheriton
School
of
Computer
Science
at
the
University
of
Waterloo,
is
recognized
for
being
approachable,
thorough,
and
passionate
about
teaching.
When
ranking
Doucette’s
teaching
on
a
scale
from
1
(unsatisfactory)
to
4
(outstanding),
one
student
asked,
“Can
I
give
John
a
5?
Because
he
deserves
one.
John
is
phenomenal!”
And
another
student
remarked
that
“even
though
it
was
an
8:30 a.m.
lecture,
his
classes
were
always
full.”
Hosseini
is
a
highly-motivated
PhD
candidate
at
the
David
R.
Cheriton
School
of
Computer
Science.
He
is
able
to
get
his
students
actively
involved
in
the
classroom
and
encourages
them
to
answer
(and
ask)
questions.
He
shows
students
that
he
is
genuinely
interested
in
them
by
learning
their
names
and
entertaining
“tangential
conversations
about
Computer
Science
after
lectures.”
This
personal
engagement
is
reflected
in
Hosseini’s
high
course
evaluations.
One
undergraduate
student
commented
that
“he
clearly
showed
that
he
cared
about
his
students
and
their
success.”
Along
with
his
studies
and
teaching,
Hosseini
works
at
the
Centre
for
Teaching
Excellence
as
a
Teaching
Assistant
Workshop
Facilitator
to
help
guide
other
Waterloo
graduate
students
in
advancing
their
knowledge,
techniques,
and
skills
as
instructors.
John Doucette will receive the award for Outstanding Achievement in Graduate Studies at the Doctoral level.