News

Today, two prominent Waterloo scientists were among the 60 exceptional scientists selected to be Fellows and Foreign Members of the Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s national academy of sciences. 

Physicist Donna Strickland and Chemist Linda Nazar were both elected for their outstanding contributions to their field and scientific understanding.

Researchers have discovered the first working refrigerator for cooling molecules to ultracold temperatures. These can be powerful candidates for running quantum computers and quantum simulators.

A distant quasar – a pulsating firestorm burning brighter than a trillion suns, half the universe away from Earth – harbours a supermassive black hole. And we can now see it with unprecedented clarity, thanks to a team of researchers from the global Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration.

The EHT team conducted the highest-resolution measurements yet of a quasar called 3C 279, using the same interconnected global array of telescopes they utilized to capture the now-iconic image of a black hole, published in April 2019.

Five University of Waterloo students, including Antonio Martinez - a PhD candidate in Waterloo’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, have teamed up with Google to develop software to accelerate machine learning using quantum science.

The collaborative effort resulted in the creation of an open-source hybrid quantum-classical machine learning software platform, called TensorFlow Quantum. 

Today is Bell Let’s Talk Day, and we’re joining in to help create positive change.

Mental illness affects people of all ages and from all walks of life. According to the Mental Health Commission of Canada, one in five people in Canada will experience a mental health issue or illness in any given year.

As part of our initiatives to promote positive mental health across the Faculty of Science, we have collected some resources, so that if you need resources know where to turn.

Echoes in gravitational wave signals suggest that the event horizon of a black hole may be more complicated than scientists currently think.

Research from the University of Waterloo reports the first tentative detection of these echoes, caused by a microscopic quantum “fuzz” that surrounds newly formed black holes.

Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space-time, caused by the collision of massive, compact objects in space, such as black holes or neutron stars.

An exciting and innovative transition has been taking place in the Faculty of Science, and we are now pleased to announce the opening of the Science Innovation Hub!

On December 28, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Julie Payette, Governor General of Canada announced 120 new appointments to the Order of Canada. The new member list included Donna Strickland, Anne Dagg, Paul Born and Stuart McGill, who are all affiliated with the University of Waterloo. Both Donna Strickland and Anne Dagg have connections with the Faculty of Science as well! They were appointed for outstanding contributions in their field and for enriching the lives of others.

The Buchalter Cosmology Prize recognizes “ground-breaking theoretical, observational, or experimental work in cosmology that has the potential to produce a breakthrough advance in our understanding.”

A woman’s scream pierces through the rolling hum of cheers from the sidelines, and Brent Plumley, BSc ‘08 is all nervous smiles.  Bound tightly with a canvas cocoon to a zip line, 350 meters long and 70 meters above a pit of bright blue water of an abandoned copper mine, she clutches a yellow ball.  Her scream culminates into a loud whoop of victory as her ball plops just inside the boundaries of a red target below, ensuring her team’s success.