Talent

The entrepreneurship ecosystem at Waterloo Engineering nurtures promising ideas into thriving enterprises. In our weekly Founder Fuel series, we look at new ventures and how they have benefited from that crucial early support.

Nicole Howard, Rachel Blanchard, Steven Vilcacundo Molina and Kris Ma (all BASc ’22, chemical engineering) set out to develop a Capstone project that could improve the world.

“I know that sounds cheesy,” says Howard. “But we did want to make a difference.”

This past year brought new challenges but also new opportunities to celebrate. As we close out 2022, we can look back and feel proud of the contributions of our Waterloo community, from on-campus initiatives and events to world-leading education and research.

This list of trending stories is just a small sample of the real-world impact our students, alums, researchers and staff are making on our future.

A team from the University of Waterloo recently completed a visit to Zimbabwe and East Africa with the goal of establishing local connections and helping to showcase the University’s distinguished scholarship, teaching excellence and ground-breaking research and innovation.

Leading this team was Dr. Christopher S. Taylor, associate vice-president, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-racism (EDI-RO), who was accompanied by Akua Amin-Asare, international recruitment specialist and Karuna Ausman, international marketing and recruitment specialist in the Registrar’s Office.

As an environmental engineering undergraduate nearly a decade ago, Robert Chlumsky, now a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Engineering, forged a professional relationship with his professors, Dr. James Craig and Dr. Bryan Tolson.

It was fostering that relationship and the research it produced that resulted in the trio receiving funding for Blackbird, a software and a new method for floodplain mapping that could potentially impact flood mitigation and response.

It has been 33 years since a gunman shot and killed 14 women at the École Polytechnique de Montréal on December 6, 1989. Below, two Waterloo Engineering alumni and a current student reflect on what the attack continues to mean for them as women in engineering.

‘We must never grow complacent’

The path to commercialization is long and winding and its twists and turns necessitate mentors along the way, attendees heard at the symposium Demystifying Commercialization, which explored how to best succeed on the path from research to commercialization.

Graduate students, research fellows and faculty attended the half-day event hosted by Velocity, Waterloo Commercialization Office (WatCo) and the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC).

Six University of Waterloo doctoral students have been awarded the prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships (Vanier CGS). One postdoctoral scholar has received the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship, as announced on Monday, November 28.

Danielle Rose weighs leafy greens in Velocity’s development lab while her colleague prepares samples for whole genome sequencing. It’s an unusual sight in the buzzing space amongst fellow tech founders. 

Danielle Rose
> Founder of Ceragen
> Velocity Resident

Dr. Lynne Sargent (PhD '22)
-PhD in Applied Philosophy
-Disability and technology consultant

Dr. Lynne Sargent’s research focuses on what she defines as the “techno-inclusive model of disability,” which has practical application for the ways that disabled people live their lives in digital and physical spaces.

This fall term students in Waterloo’s Theatre and Performance program are working alongside professional artists, faculty, and staff, to produce a meta-theatrical experience that challenges everybody to ponder tough questions about the meaning of life.