News

A University of Waterloo Microbial Bioenergetics Workshop was held on July 23-24at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) campus in Waterloo, organized by Water Institute member Christina Smeaton. Funded by a Water Institute Seed Grant, the two-day workshop successfully facilitated knowledge exchange and collaboration between academic researchers across disciplines and industries.

Collaborative Water Program alum Fredrick Cheng, PhD candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering, has been awarded the American Geophysical Union Horton (Hydrology) Research Grant. Each year this prestigious grant is awarded to up to three students during their candidacy for a PhD degree in hydrology, water resources, or a closely related field.

Progress on new artificial intelligence (AI) technology could make monitoring at water treatment plants cheaper and easier and help safeguard public health.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed AI software capable of identifying and quantifying different kinds of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, a threat to shut down water systems when it suddenly proliferates.

Executive director of the Water Institute Roy Brouwer, professor in Waterloo’s Department of Economics, was invited to be a part of a panel discussion during the 2018 session of the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) in New York City on July 13.

Two University of Waterloo researchers received awards at the Canadian Network of Asset Managers 2018 Conference (CNAM): Water Institute member Mark Knight and PhD student Hamed Mohammad Fardi. The network is a national leader for public infrastructure and asset management.

The Water Institute is tremendously saddened by the loss of Ric Soulis, a longtime Waterloo civil and environmental engineering professor and Water Institute member, who died June 21 after a brief illness.

Ric had a substantial record of accomplishments and impact through his research in hydrology, water resources and the physics of water movement.

Institutions around the Great Lakes gathered at the 2018 AquaHacking semi-finals in Toronto to present their solutions for the issues facing the Great Lakes. Competing teams were given five minutes to pitch their idea to judges throughout the afternoon at the RBC WaterPark Place.

Five of the 16 teams that competed were selected to move on to the finals in October, including a University of Waterloo team, WaterPuris, that is tackling the issue of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDC) in our Great Lakes.

The International Association for Great Lakes Research (IAGLR) honoured Water Institute member William D. Taylor on Tuesday with its 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award. Presented at IAGLR’s 61st Annual Conference on Great Lakes Research, the award recognizes important and continued contributions to the field of Great Lakes research over a period of 20 years or more.