News

Dr. Clara Colombatto and her colleague Dr. Steve Fleming at University College London, recently revealed that two-thirds of people think that artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT have some degree of consciousness and can have subjective experiences such as feelings and memories.

Congratulations to the many students and faculty who presented their work at CSBBCS last week in Edmonton!

We are happy to report that two of our CNS graduate students had their work recognized with awards:

Congratulations to students in the I/O area who took Ottawa by storm at last week’s Canadian Psychological Association meeting! Eleven students from the I/O area attended and went on to sweep ALL of the Canadian Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology) poster awards!

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Evan Risko who is the recipient of the 2024 Arts Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is being recognized for all of his teaching efforts, but in particular for his dedication to graduate teaching and mentorship.

At the 2024 convocation on June 13, 2024, Dr. Colin MacLeod was named Distinguished Professor Emeritus. He retired in 2022 from the Department of Psychology after 19 years of service, preceded by 25 years of service at the University of Toronto. He is recognized as one of the foremost experts in the world on the subject of attention, learning, and memory.

Congratulations to Dr. Ramona Bobocel for her recent SIOP Fellowship election. This prestigious honor is in recognition of outstanding accomplishments in the profession of I/O Psychology and is awarded to only a few members who have made significant contributions to the field.  

The Faculty of Arts is very proud to share that Dr. Sara A. Hart will hold the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Developmental Science, based in the Department of Psychology. Announced today by the Government of Canada’s Ministry of Innovation, Science and Industry, Hart is one of two new CERCs at Waterloo and among 34 new holders of the chair across Canada. She joins Waterloo as a full professor in spring 2024.

A Waterloo Psychology co-op student, Romantsov (she/her) is the first recipient of Powering Change which is funded by Global Skills Opportunity (GSO).

Powering Change was founded in November 2021 and provides $10,000 in funding for in-person international work-integrated learning experiences.

Recently, Cognitive Neuroscience PhD candidate, Brady Roberts, aimed to investigate how well symbols are remembered compared to words with the same meaning. “Symbols might be more easily remembered because they give concrete visuals to abstract ideas,” said Roberts, "When we think about abstract concepts, like love, it can be difficult to visualize clearly. But with symbols, we can use a sort of image that represents the concept – like a heart for love – which makes the abstract idea more concrete and therefore easier to remember."

UWaterloo Cognitive Neuroscience Prof. Dr. James Danckert, recently delivered a fascinating TEDx Talk on his groundbreaking research into adaptive approaches to boredom, and how his research can help us avoid boredoms troubling effects.

Check it out here: