Research

“The line that separates me now, an assistant professor at a university living an incredibly comfortable life, from a body on the beach is the thinnest line imaginable.”

VINH NGUYEN, professor of English, University of Waterloo

There’s a childhood family photo of Vinh Nguyen on his seventh birthday. The party table is loaded for a celebration with spring rolls, fried noodles, jelly and raisins — but Nguyen is not smiling.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have unlocked the potential of graphene in areas as diverse as vehicles, consumer electronics and environmental cleanup with an eco-friendly ink for 3D-printing.

Graphene is well known for its strength, electrical conductivity and thermal properties, but it is typically produced in a powder form that can be difficult to work with, therefore limiting its uses.

Have you ever bought something in your game without knowing the cost in real currency? You may have encountered deceptive game design or specific user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) practices that trick players into doing things that mainly benefit the game's developers and publishers.

Hilda Hadan, a Ph.D. candidate in Systems Design Engineering supervised by UX researchers at Stratford School for Interaction Design and Business at the University of Waterloo, explains some common tactics and how to avoid them.

Researchers have generated the first dataset of water flow beneath the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet, which will lead to more accurate projections of sea level rise. 

University of Waterloo researchers have pinpointed for the first time how microplastics accumulate in coral reefs, a key step to understanding how to protect vulnerable ecosystems. 

A team at Waterloo’s Faculty of Engineering used nanotechnology to determine that mucus naturally secreted by coral reefs has strong adhesive characteristics and therefore traps microplastics floating in the ocean. 

Waterloo researchers, students and alumni tackle challenges through cross-disciplinary collaboration, developing creative solutions with global impact.

You’re familiar with Waterloo’s iconic inventions like BlackBerry and OpenText, and those mentioned in our 10 inventions you didn’t know came from Waterloo — but you spoke, and we listened. Our readers helped us uncover even more groundbreaking innovations from this vibrant community that continue to shape industries worldwide.

Interop Labs, the initial developer of the Axelar Web3 interoperability network, announced today a $1 million USD donation to grow the Computer Research Endowment at the University of Waterloo. This generous contribution will support the creation of an AI and blockchain research laboratory at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, the largest and top-ranked academic computer science research centre in Canada. The laboratory will be named the GENESIS Lab, standing for Generative AI for Secure, Interconnected Systems.

Drs. Geoff Bardwell and Zahid Butt, both researchers in Waterloo’s School of Public Health Sciences, have received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) in the latest competition

Inspired by the movement of insects gliding on the surface of water, University of Waterloo researchers have designed tiny robots controlled by light, offering promising possibilities for environmental remediation and biomedical applications.