Waterloo News

Engineering Alumni

A licensed engineer for nearly four decades, Murray Gamble has shaped the region's institutions through his dedicated volunteer service

The iron ring is small, sized to fit the little finger of an engineer’s working hand. Today it is more often made from stainless steel than iron. Though it doesn’t weigh much physically, it carries enormous symbolic weight, acting as a reminder to Canadian-trained professional engineers of the oath they took to do good, safe work that advances society.

Friendlier, a local startup tackling Canada’s single-use plastic problem head-on, recently closed a $4.5 million dollar funding round. The company, founded in 2019 by University of Waterloo alumni Jacqueline Hanton (BASc ’20) and Kayli Smith (BASc ’20), has raised a total of $10 million and kept almost 3.7 million food and beverage containers out of landfills.  

For 100 years, Canadian-trained engineers have participated in The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer, an annual event at which they take an oath to uphold their profession’s values and in return, receive an iron ring—a small but mighty symbol of their solemn commitment to serve society. 

For University of Waterloo alum Stephanie Thompson (BASc ’01), the ring is a unifier, reminding all who wear it to do work that pays attention to technical excellence but also, crucially, to how the work they do impacts people’s lives.  

Waterloo graduate Kiyoumars Zarshenas (PhD ’23) has been named a winner of the Science Exposed 2024 Jury Prize sponsored by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) with a striking image captured with a scanning electron microscope.  

The Science Exposed contest highlights photos of Canadian research to foster interest and curiosity in the sciences. Each year, 20 images are selected as finalists for the English contest and showcased by various means, including exhibitions.