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But for the second-year PhD student in the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization, the research is fully grounded and relevant. Van Dyk’s research finds practical application for one of the largest companies in the world, Amazon.

Movies are a cultural mirror that shows us who we are. They reflect our values and aspirations, but also our preconceived notions and assumptions. Movies about math and mathematicians are no different.

For example, many movies featuring mathematicians depict them as savants. The stereotypical savant character ranges from quirky genius to troubled outsider to dangerous deviant.

Mathematics is like a language.

Nowadays, it’s a language with the same symbols and meaning in every place it’s used. A multiplication sign is a multiplication sign everywhere, and everybody agrees on what a multiplication sign means.

But it wasn’t always so.

In the history of mathematics, Hypatia’s legend looms large. She was a woman mathematician in an era when women were not generally seen as academics. She has been called a martyr for truth and reason. And because of the context of her life and death, Hypatia continues to be one of the most enigmatic figures in mathematics.

July 10 is Nikola Tesla’s birthday. He was born 165 years ago. Tesla is one of the most enigmatic figures in the STEM world, and had he been alive today, he would be a massive fan of the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo.

Research conducted by recent computer science master’s graduate Iman Akbari received a Best Student Paper award at SIGMETRICS 2021, the flagship conference of the Association for Computing Machinery’s special interest group for the computer systems performance evaluation community.

Danish Farid, a Master of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (MDSAI) student, likes to keep his options open in many aspects of his life. While working an 8-month co-op at Huawei Technologies Canada, one of the things he appreciated most was being able to move between teams to observe and participate in the different types of work each one focused on. 

2021 graduates Spencer Whitehead (BMath ’21) and Robert Cummings (BMath ’21) have been awarded the Alumni Gold Medal and Governor General’s Silver Medal, respectively.