Current students

Cheri Chevalier
Alumnus, Faculty of Arts (BA ’95)
> Global Director, Emerging Solutions, Microsoft Dynamics at Microsoft

When Cheri Chevalier interviewed at Microsoft Canada as a fourth-year Waterloo St. Jerome's University co-op student, she was surprised by the ambitious task assigned to her.

What would our shelter-in-place COVID-19 experiences be like in Canada without engineering technology advancements such as smart phones, Zoom, Amazon or Netflix? What would the mortality outcomes of COVID-19 be without technology advances in health care that have allowed us to decode the novel Coronavirus genome in a month, access geospatial information systems to help pinpoint areas of infection and the use of ventilators to treat critical patients?

In the wake of COVID-19, many in our community are overwhelmed with fear and uncertainty. Being separated from our loved ones and unable to go about our lives in any normal way, is adding to this stress and causing increased anxiety for many people.

In a world where just about everyone has a smartphone it also means that almost everyone has become an amateur photographer. In 2019, more than 657 billion smartphone photographs were taken – and many of them blurry. But help is on the way. A promising new student venture, Scope, is hoping their invention of a new type of optical zoom lens system with electronically tunable optical power will help people take better photos while reducing the battery use, costs, and processing power of smartphones.

During these weeks of self-isolation and physical distancing, it’s important to find positive moments in daily life.

As Waterloo alumni all over the world stay home to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we asked them to share the small moments that bring them joy. From ice cream to video calls with family, we hope you find some comfort and inspiration in these messages from others in the UWaterloo community.

We’re all in this together.

Kayras Engineer

April 19 to 25 is National Volunteer Week, a time to recognize volunteers for all that they do.

Flatten.ca, a web-based, data-gathering platform co-developed by ten Waterloo students, is gaining national attention. Launched at the end of March, participating students volunteer their time to help track and monitor COVID-19 outbreaks across the country. The app helps increase awareness and flatten the curve in the spread of COVID-19

It began as a few words on a sticky note while a team of engineering students at the University of Waterloo brainstormed ideas for their fourth-year design project.

Now, little more than six months later, the students have a working prototype of a portable, low-cost ventilator they hope could soon help save lives on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis.

“It’s a total fluke, but our project couldn’t be any more relevant than it is today,” says Connor Simmons, one of four team members from the mechatronics and mechanical engineering programs.