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A year into his undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo’s School of Accounting and Finance, Jonathan Lucki felt pulled in an unexpected direction. “My whole life, I had plans to be an accountant,” he remembered. "I ended up enrolling in the Math/Business Accounting program within the Faculty of Mathematics. But even before university, math had become my favourite subject in school and I found myself writing computer programs in my spare time for fun."

Nine University of Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics professors named 2020 Vector Institute Faculty Affiliates.

The cohort includes both new faculty affiliates as well as those returning for a second term. The new faculty affiliates are Ihab Ilyas and Gautam Kamath of the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science.

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.  

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.”

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.

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.

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.

Four students with connections to the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Mathematics included in Forbes 30 Under 30 for 2021.

The four students, Jeremy Wang, Artem Pasyechnyk, Everest Munro-Zeisberger and Andrei Serban are entrepreneurs involved in gaming and enterprise technology.

Jeremy Wang

Company:  Streamer, Disguised Toast

Education: Faculty of Mathematics 

With COVID-19 preventing hockey fans from watching games in person this year, the University of Waterloo, Rogers Communications, and Sportsnet are seeking new ways to enhance the experience of watching hockey from home. They recently partnered to host the Sportsnet Hockey Hack, a virtual hackathon that challenged Waterloo students to design applications using 5G technology to deepen and enrich fan engagement.

She grew up in Alberta and Nova Scotia, but she considers Nanchang, China, her second home. After earning undergraduate degrees in pure mathematics and education, Alyssa Schultz Dey took a leap of faith and accepted a teaching position at the Nanchang No. 2 High School Sino-Canadian Nova Scotia International Program in southeastern China.