Societal Futures

Every year, around 10 million people contract tuberculosis (TB) — a treatable disease where bacteria attack a patient’s lungs. Globally, only about half of those who contract TB yearly are diagnosed. Many other people with TB are undiagnosed and untreated, partly due to a lack of access to quality health-care systems, particularly in resource-limited settings and among marginalized groups.  

For more than 50 years, the University of Waterloo has hosted an insightful and thought-provoking public lecture series: The Hagey Lectures. This premier event has featured a wide range of celebrated scholars, artists and change makers.  

The Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA) received a $5 million dollar donation from the Balsillie Family Fund to establish the Technology Governance Initiative (TGI) at the School.

As part of the Technology Governance Initiative, the Balsillie Scholars Program will invite leading international technology governance scholars and practitioners to the School for periods ranging from three months to one year, fostering mentorship, research, and collaboration.

Founded in 1882, the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), which comprises of the Academy of Arts and Humanities, Academy of Social Sciences and the Academy of Science, recognizes excellence, advises the government and promotes a culture of knowledge and innovation with other national academies around the world.  

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.

The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) is a non-profit corporation that invests in research infrastructure at Canadian universities, colleges, research hospitals and non-profit research institutions. Since 1997, the CFI has been supporting Canadian researchers each year to carry out world-class research through grants and government funding.  

It’s said that an engineering degree can take you places. For Waterloo University alumnus Stephanie Holko (BASc ’04, chemical engineering) her studies led her somewhere extraordinary - swimming with orcas off the coast of Norway on an all-women research expedition.

Dr. Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher is the Canada Research Chair in Science, Health and Technology Communication and leading expert on how communication practices shape how people engage with scientific and technical subject matters.