Talent

Researching in mathematics means engaging in unconventional thinking. For Patrick Naylor, a newly-minted PhD graduate from the Department of Pure Mathematics, the unconventional is the everyday.

Naylor works in the field of low-dimensional topology, which in a nutshell means he explores the characteristics of dimensions beyond those we experience as reality.

“We have a unique opportunity for universities and businesses to work together to ensure we are equipping talent to find innovative solutions that will reshape our local and global economies,” said the University of Waterloo’s President, Vivek Goel, in his opening address at the Waterloo Innovation Summit on April 14.

Megan Logan was excited when she secured a co-op work term with the United Way Waterloo Region Communities — a region she now calls home. 

The second-year Arts and Business student from Burlington wanted to find a first co-op work term where she could get to know the area she lives and studies in and feel like she was doing work that mattered. She found that opportunity through the University of Waterloo’s Co-op for Community program.  

When Jonah Eisen signed up for the Sportsnet Hockey Hack in his final year of his master’s program, he set his future career path in motion.

Eisen was drawn to the week-long hackathon hosted in collaboration with Rogers Communications because it combined his favorite interests — sports and telecommunications. He saw a chance to gain real-world experience in applying his theoretical research to the 5G wireless network, and it was there that he met Rogers’ director of innovation and partnership, Neel Dayal.

After graduating from Waterloo, Bilal Akhtar (BSE ’19) saw a bright future ahead. Not only had he landed a dream job at Cockroach Labs, a database company where he interned during his undergraduate degree, but he also led the company’s expansion to create a Toronto-based office. 

­­­­The University of Waterloo brings together bold ideas and brilliant minds, landing it as the top university in the country for founders. As the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Waterloo continues to  grow, creators and change-makers need a simple way to navigate the many resources and programs.

The University of Waterloo has a long history of supporting corporate innovation through talent and partnerships, like the Rogers 5G partnership, and through support systems such as the Velocity incubator.

While 74 per cent of Velocity startups have one or more founders that studied or worked at the University of Waterloo, Velocity also attracts global startups. In 2021, the incubator, which can accommodate up to 20 new companies per year, received more than 200 qualified applications.

The pandemic has forced employers and employees alike to rethink the world of work. Whether the rapid shift to remote work to challenges recruiting top talent, evolving workplace expectations to critical calls for diversity, equity and inclusion – employers and employees are embracing new concepts and approaches. 

What a milestone achievement for Madeline Schizas, a student of Urban Planning at the Faculty of Environment, Waterloo! She competed at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics recording a personal best of 69.60 points in the women’s short program portion. 

Schizas is a competitive skater. The 19-year-old from Oakville, Ontario in her first Olympics accomplishment lifted Canada to fourth from sixth and moved the country into the five-team final round of the figure skating.

Finding efficient and comfortable methods for the delivery of drugs to the eye remains a significant challenge for vision scientists — and one that University of Waterloo researchers at the Centre for Eye and Vision Research (CEVR) are undertaking in real time.

Under the leadership of Waterloo’s Dr. Lyndon Jones, researchers at Hong Kong’s Centre for Eye and Vision Research are working hard to answer the age-old question: how can we create effective, non-invasive drug solutions for our eyes?