Awards, Honours and Rankings

Two international researchers are joining the University of Waterloo as part of a federal initiative to attract top-tier scientists and scholars to Canada.

Kerstin Dautenhahn, one of the founders of the field of social robotics, and Anita Layton, recognized for her work in mathematical biology and medicine, were announced as new Waterloo researchers on Thursday, March 29 as Canada 150 Research Chairs. Each will receive research funding of $350,000 per year for the next seven years.

A sense of purpose trumped flat-out fun when four mechatronics engineering students finally settled on a project to cap their undergraduate years at the University of Waterloo.

Now they have confirmation it was the right way to go.

John Curticapean, Ben Hudson, Tony Qu and Malcolm Williams took one of six $10,000 prizes this week as student startups pitched their business ideas at the Norman Esch Entrepreneurship Awards for Capstone Design competition.

A-Line Orthopaedics, a company developing implants for safer and faster surgeries, was one of the four big winners at the 21^st staging of the Velocity Fund Finals (VFF) held at the University of Waterloo. 

Velocity, which this year celebrates its 10^th anniversary, is a comprehensive entrepreneurship program at Waterloo providing the resources and mentorship to help founders initiate and incubate high-growth startups. 

Four University of Waterloo faculty members have been recognized for excellence in teaching with the University’s most prestigious teaching honour - the Distinguished Teacher Award (DTA).

The DTA consists of a citation along with a $1,500 award to be used by the recipients in support of any teaching activities. The awards will be presented by Mario Coniglio, associate vice-president, academic, at the June convocation ceremony.

March 19 – 23 is National Co-op Week and Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) Week, and the University of Waterloo is celebrating its students’ co-op and WIL opportunities.

We're proud to kick things off with Emily Pass, a third-year Science undergraduate student who is a recipient of the National Co-op of the Year Award for developing a data analysis program that rapidly detects objects in the Kuiper Belt, a region of space beyond Neptune.  Pass has also won awards at the provincial and faculty levels.

Hagey Hall swelled with recognizable tunes Sunday, February 18 as a crowd of almost 1,000 attendees packed a sold-out theatre for the 2018 International Championship for Collegiate A Capella (ICCA) Quarterfinals.  10 teams from across southern Ontario performed 12-minute routines for a shot at top title, with Waterloo’s four of five teams taking home a combined seven awards.  First-place winners, In Full Colour, and runner-up group, The Waterboys, will continue to semi-finals in Buffalo next month.

Accomplished alumni, outstanding current students and generous supporters were all celebrated when more than 400 people got together last November for the 2017 Waterloo Engineering Awards Dinner.

The annual event honoured graduates in three categories and a foundation dedicated to helping produce engineers, plus hundreds of top students for their academic and extracurricular achievements.

Pearl Sullivan, dean of Waterloo Engineering, wrapped up the evening at the University’s Federation Hall by urging everyone to wear their connections to the Faculty on their sleeves.

Russell Giles jokes that after this past weekend’s Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race he doesn’t know what he’ll do with his spare time.

Leading up to the race hosted by Waterloo’s Faculty of Engineering, Russell, the captain of Waterloo’s Concrete Toboggan team, spent an average of 50-hours a week during the past couple of months working on the group’s toboggan.