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Strategic Initiatives: Research
- Waterloo was listed among the world’s top 50 schools for engineering and technology for the fourth year in a row by the Academic Ranking of World Universities (Shanghai Ranking) and for the second year in a row by U.S. News & World Report.
- Major research chairs and honours earned in 2015/16:
- Canada Research Chair renewals were awarded to Professors Amir Khajepour (Tier I in Mechatronic Vehicle Systems) and Carolyn Ren (Tier II in Lab-on-a-Chip Technology);
- Professor Kaan Inal was named the General Motors Research Chair;
- Professor Amir Khandani was awarded the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)-Ciena Industrial Research Chair;
- Professors Carolyn Hansson and Garry Rempel were named Members of the Order of Canada;
- Professor Xuemin (Sherman) Shen was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada;
- Professor Zhongwei Chen received the NSERC E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship;
- Professors Pu Chen and Ming Yu were inducted as Fellows of the Canadian Academy of Engineering;
- Professor John McPhee was inducted as a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada;
- Professor Keith Hipel was elected as a Foreign Member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering;
- Ontario’s Early Researcher Awards were awarded to four engineering professors; and
- Tri-Council research funding earned by engineering researchers reached its highest level yet ($20.4M), up from 22% in 2013, as did total funding from industry sources ($11.2M). Both have increased more than 25% since 2013/14.
- Six engineering professors were awarded NSERC Strategic Partnership Grants totalling $3.3M. Engineering researchers also earned 11 NSERC Research Tools and Instruments awards totalling over $1.5M.
- Professors Soo Jeon and Lin Tan were awarded NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement awards in 2015.
- Engineering research projects received over $675K from the Automotive Partnership Canada Fund.
- The University of Waterloo, McMaster University, and Western University received $35M over five years from the Government of Ontario to establish an Advanced Manufacturing Consortium.
Strategic Initiatives: Experiential Education
- Waterloo Engineering and the University’s Co-operative Education and Career Action office received the 2015 Labour Award from the Creative Destruction Lab (part of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management) for their contribution to Canada’s economic development and leadership in developing talent in demand globally.
- In the past year Waterloo Engineering students have completed a record 8,091 co-op work terms, earning $117M and achieving a 98% employment rate. The proportion of work terms filled outside of Canada increased again this year, reaching almost 18%.
- Two additional courses were added as electives for the Waterloo Professional Development Program (WatPD) – Engineering program: Processes for Technical Writing and Reflection and Learning in the Workplace.
Strategic Initiatives: Entrepreneurship
- Emily Peat, founder of EcoPlace Organics, became the first student to graduate with the engineering entrepreneurship option at spring 2015 convocation.
- The Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship, and Technology Centre launched a minor in entrepreneurship for all Waterloo students in fall 2015.
- $60K was awarded at the third annual Norman Esch Entrepreneurship Awards for Capstone Design competition for engineering students.
- Almost $35K in micro-seed funding was awarded to entrepreneurial engineering students through the Engineer of the Future Trust.
- Waterloo Engineering and Spectrum 28, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, launched the Waterloo Engineering | Spectrum 28 Student Venture Program which offers students access to $2M from Spectrum 28 as well as mentorship from faculty and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and businesses.
- Student attendance reached over 140 at the two-event Startup Law series, hosted by Torys LLP, and 70 graduate students attended Level Up – Turning Research into Commercial Opportunities, sponsored by iNOVIA Capital and Bennett Jones
- Baylis Medical donated $300K towards the Baylis Medical Student Garage to be located in the Engineering 7 building currently under construction.
- Four University of Waterloo companies, all founded by engineering students or graduates, were named among the top 50 global entrepreneurs under 25 by the international non-profit Kairos Society.
- Michael Skupien and Alex Rodrigues, second-year engineering students and founders of Varden Labs, developed a self-driving vehicle that became the first to travel on a Canadian road.
Voltera V-One, a custom circuit board printer developed as a Capstone Design project by Alroy Almeida, Katarina Ilic, James Pickard, and Jesús Zozaya, became the first Canadian startup to win the prestigious top prize in the 2015 International James Dyson Award competition.
Strategic Initiatives: Academic Programming and Teaching Excellence
- 2015/16 was the final year of Engineering’s Vision 2015 Undergraduate Laboratory Enhancement Initiative, through which $8.5M has been invested to ensure students modern, contemporary lab facilities and equipment.
- As part of an ongoing process of improvement that reflects student and faculty input, Electrical and Computer Engineering has revised its curricula to encourage and enable deeper learning.
- Total undergraduate enrolment and the enrolment of women in the Faculty of Engineering again reached all-time highs in 2015 with 7,339 students, a full quarter of whom were women. The proportion of women in the first-year class reached 30% for the first time, up from 22% in 2013.
- Of the new first-year students registered in the Faculty of Engineering in fall 2015, 84% had incoming high school averages of 90% or higher. 38% had averages of at least 95%. This is an increase of 9% over last year in both cases.
- Over 11,600 applications to engineering programs were received for fall 2016, an increase of 11% over the previous year. Engineering was unfortuantely unable to make offers to over 2,500 students who applied with high school averages of 90% or higher.
- For the 2015 calendar year, Engineering again awarded a record number of undergraduate (1,263) and graduate (686) degrees and more doctoral and bachelor’s degrees than any other engineering school in Canada.
- A 17% increase in Canadian and permanent resident students admitted to graduate research programs over the previous year demonstrates progress toward Engineering’s ambitious targets for domestic graduate student enrolment.
- Dual doctoral degrees in engineering have been introduced with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, one of the world’s top Engineering schools. New exchange agreements were established with Singapore University of Technology and Design, Tsinghua University, and Australia National University.
Professor Zhou Wang was named a member of the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, and received an Engineering Emmy Award.
- Teaching awards earned in 2015/16 include:
- continuing Lecturer Carol Hulls received the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education/Brightspace Innovation Award in Teaching and Learning;
- continuing Lecturer Bob McKillop and Professor Mark Pritzker both received University of Waterloo Distinguished Teaching Awards, marking just the second time in the award’s history that two engineering faculty were selected in one year; and
- Tiffany Bayley, management sciences doctoral candidate, was awarded an Amit and Meena Chakma Award for Exceptional Teaching by a Student.