Research

A balsam fir for its sweet fragrance or a white pine for its soft needles?

Picking a real Christmas tree is a beloved tradition for many and a proven environmentally friendly choice. But as our climate changes, tree growers are having to adapt to new conditions from shifting seasons to the arrival of unfamiliar pests. While the challenges are significant, innovation is growing.

In her role as associate director of Science Indigenous Initiatives at Waterloo, Savannah Sloat has plenty of opportunities to interact with students, faculty and members of Indigenous communities in the region. As a Tuscarora educator and a registered member of Six Nations of the Grand River, Sloat focuses her work on community identity, politics and personhood.

A much faster, more efficient training method developed at the University of Waterloo could help put powerful artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the hands of many more people by reducing the cost and environmental impact of building them.

Large language models (LLMs) are advanced AI systems designed to understand and generate human language by learning patterns in how words and ideas are connected from massive amounts of text in books, articles and websites.

Scientists, including Waterloo’s Professor Lisa Dang from the physics and astronomy department, have discovered a huge cloud of helium gas is escaping from the atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-121 b, an “ultra-hot Jupiter.” Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scientists found that the helium stretches into long tails in front of and behind the planet as it orbits around its star. The planet is losing atmosphere in dramatic ways, but current models can’t fully explain the observed structure, leaving scientists searching for more information. 

Four Indigenous students at the University of Waterloo are the recipients of Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) awards. The $392,000 in funding supports research in the Faculties of Arts, Environment and Health and bring together Traditional Knowledge and western science.  

For 18 years in a row, the University of Waterloo has been recognized as Research University of the Year in the comprehensive category by Research Infosource Inc. The achievement reflects Waterloo’s ongoing commitment to solving the world’s most pressing challenges through research collaboration, innovation and impact.

As wastewater surveillance continues to offer an early window into the spread of respiratory viruses, Dr. Trevor Charles, a professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Waterloo who studies molecular genetics, outlines what the latest environmental sampling reveals, what to expect heading into winter and the steps individuals and families can take to stay protected.  

Chemical engineering researchers at the University of Waterloo have joined forces to take on a pressing environmental problem by using synthetic biology to turn plastic waste into valuable resources.

The multidisciplinary group is working together to review and identify strategies that leverage synthetic biology, microbial engineering and engineering design to degrade and upcycle plastic waste.