Engineering

Friday, January 26, 2024

Reducing cancer risk with new firefighting gear

by Nicola Kelly, Faculty of Engineering

Recent studies have suggested that firefighters are three times more likely to die of cancer than the general population. This is partly attributed to their gear, which contains polyfluorinated substances (PFAS), a large group of chemicals that are used in many applications, and often elevates the risk to cancer.

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Higher education analytics giant acquires Waterloo-grown 1Mentor

by Jasmin English & Naomi Grosman, Conrad School & Velocity

Waterloo-based 1Mentor’s recent acquisition by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the world’s largest global higher education network, underscores the urgent need for their platform and the data it provides higher education institutions. 

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Making STEM more inclusive

by Charlotte Danby, Faculty of Engineering

In April this year, the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Engineering Outreach team launched a free community outreach program called Travelling STEM. Over the summer, the pilot program visited Indigenous communities across Ontario to share exciting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) possibilities with youth from kindergarten to grade 11 in their home communities.  

Monday, September 25, 2023

Celebrating 10 years of Hack the North

by Charlotte Danby, Faculty of Engineering

Hack the North, the largest collegiate hackathon in Canada, celebrated its 10th anniversary at the University of Waterloo with more than 1,000 students from around the world.

Organized by students for students, the annual event involves participants converging on campus to spend 36 intense hours creating innovative technologies through collaboration and mentorship.

Engineering an epic event

Thursday, September 14, 2023

Working together to solve problems

by Charlotte Danby, Faculty of Engineering

An international mix of nine talented, engaged and curious engineering students recently gathered at the University of Waterloo to tackle a big, messy and complex issue — housing. More specifically, how to build 47,000 homes in a way that is sustainable and kind.  

Friday, September 1, 2023

Embracing change

by Angie Docking, Faculty of Engineering

Expanding upon its long legacy of excellence, the Department of Management Sciences at Waterloo Engineering has undergone an official name change to better encapsulate the unit’s distinctive, interdisciplinary approach to education within the engineering field.

The introduction of the department’s new name – Management Science and Engineering (MSE) – follows more than a year of discussions, meetings and town halls with students, faculty, staff, alumni and senior engineering faculty leadership.

Friday, June 2, 2023

Going above grade

by Charlotte Danby, Faculty of Engineering

Whenever Osose Itua gets on a plane, she’s awestruck by its power to lift off and fly. Her well-travelled childhood from Nigeria to Malaysia to Canada, impressed upon her the wonders of transportation and fuelled her desire to become an engineer.  

Curious about how trains, planes and cars work, Itua thought she’d study mechanical engineering. But in her investigation of various universities and their degree programs, she came across mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo and something just clicked.

If you’ve walked through a shopping mall or watched a big game on TV lately, you’re sure to have seen an ad touting the benefits of 5G cellular networks. While the ads make claims about having the fastest network or making our lives better, most of us still have a lingering question — what, exactly, is 5G anyway?

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Paving the way for electric vehicle adoption

by Alex Kinsella, Faculty of Engineering

As automobile manufacturers continue their pivot to electric vehicles (EVs), the days of the internal combustible engine are ending — and sooner than you think. In Canada, the sale of new gas-powered vehicles will end in 2035. South of the border, the U.S. is set to end the sale of new gas-powered light vehicles as early as 2025.  

For many car owners, their next purchase will be an EV. But as many current EV owners know, the environmental benefits of battery-powered cars come with a tradeoff.  

Monday, May 15, 2023

Waterloo startup Alchemy finds success and support

by Suzanne Bowness, Faculty of Engineering

It’s that moment that every entrepreneur dreams of the realization that you’ve not only created a product that would help solve a genuine problem but that it’s unique in the marketplace. For nanotechnology engineering alums Khanjan Desai (BASc '13) and Chong Shen (BASc '13), that inkling happened in their fourth-year capstone course, as they were tackling the challenge of keeping windshields frost-free.