Talent

Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Pedagogy of the streets

by Jon Parsons, University Relations

“I grew up on the margins,” he says. “I was in a school system that wasn’t built for success, or was built for success for some people and not others. The seed was planted for me to think about pedagogy way back then.”

In his work as an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies, Dr. Adam Ellis is now practicing an approach to teaching and learning that aims to undo the very systems that pushed him to the margins, a liberatory pedagogy he is developing organically.

Sarah Rourke, who will graduate this spring with a Bachelor of Science, will pursue a master’s degree in physics at McGill University. She is among 30 students from 10 countries selected for these awards worth more than $3.3 million combined. The awards were created with a generous gift of $200 million from John and Marcy McCall MacBain. Rourke is the second Waterloo student so honoured.

Friday, April 21, 2023

Sustainable innovation needs societal change

by Stephanie Longeway, University Relations

“The climate crisis is our biggest existential threat,” said the University of Waterloo’s President, Vivek Goel, in his opening address at the Waterloo Innovation Summit on Friday, April 21. 

It’s no coincidence that the Summit, centred on sustainable transportation, took place on the eve of Earth Day.

The calls and commitments to reduce our carbon emissions have never been louder, but our global energy related CO2 emissions continued to climb in 2022.

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) announced close to $51 million in funding today for projects that will strengthen Canada’s quantum research and innovation capacity in alignment with the National Quantum Strategy.

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Connecting through volunteer work

by Milana Madzarac, School of Pharmacy

Helping to develop future pharmacists plays an important role in Puja Sharma’s (PharmD ’15) life. She is a pharmacist at Baxter CIVA Pharmacy Services and first applied to be a PharmD interviewer during her last two years at Waterloo Pharmacy.

PharmD interviewers help to interview new prospective students looking to start a doctoral degree.

“Volunteering at the School gives me a sense of wholeness,” says Sharma. “I’m fortunate that I am able to make a difference by giving back in such a positive way to our profession.”

Friday, April 14, 2023

Quantum Connects Us

by Elizabeth Kleisath, Institute for Quantum Computing

Twenty years ago, a cross-campus collaboration in quantum science and technology was just a newly unfolding idea. Today, the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) has grown from this idea into a fully formed campus research community, and recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. 

Today, on World Quantum Day, we proudly reflect on IQC’s impressive achievements made over the past 20 years, look forward to the future of quantum discoveries, and celebrate the new connections and collaborations that they have brought to the University of Waterloo community.

In April 2019, the government of Indonesia announced a 10-year plan to transfer all government offices away from its capital Jakarta to a new sustainable, planned capital city. Jakarta is well-known for its traffic congestion and poor air quality; however, sea level rise also played a role in the island nation’s unprecedented decision.

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Catching the AI wave

by Naomi Grosman, Velocity

Students at Velocity Digital are bullish about artificial intelligence.

More than 35 per cent of the cross-disciplinary teams engaged in Velocity Digital, the South Campus Hall creator space, are using artificial intelligence in multiple ways, recognizing its power as a tool to solve problems at a capacity beyond the capabilities of human analysis of data.

Thursday, April 13, 2023

A trick of the hat

by Joe Petrik, Cheriton School of Computer Science

A nearly 60-year-old mathematical problem has finally been solved.

The story began last fall when David Smith, a retired print technician from Yorkshire, England, came upon a shape with a tantalizing property. The life-long tiling enthusiast discovered a 13-sided shape — dubbed the hat — that is able to fill the infinite plane without overlaps or gaps in a pattern that not only never repeats but also never can be made to repeat.