News

A team of Waterloo students, including two from the Water Institute’s Collaborative Water Program, earned international recognition this fall as they represented Waterloo at the Water Environment Federation’s Technical Exhibition and Conference (WEFTEC). WEFTEC is North America’s largest annual gathering for water-quality professionals and a major international showcase for wastewater technology and design, where they won second place in the Student Design Competition.

After more than four decades supporting water research, teaching and student success in the Faculty of Science, long-time staff member Marianne Vandergriendt has been named an Honorary Member of the University of Waterloo. From her early days in Dr. James Barker’s Organic Geochemistry Lab to her key role in establishing the Ecohydrology Research Group (ERG) with Dr. Philippe Van Cappellen, Marianne’s career has been defined by technical excellence, compassion and mentorship. Her colleagues and students describe her as a role model whose kindness and dedication shaped generations of researchers.

From modelling floods and droughts to managing watersheds and tracking climate change, today’s environmental challenges require faster, more powerful computing. Now, researchers at the University of Waterloo and across Canada have a new tool to help solve them: Nibi, Waterloo’s newest high-performance supercomputer.

The Water Institute is now accepting applications for the 2025–26 John Parish Memorial Graduate Scholarship, which supports graduate research in fluvial geomorphology, river processes, and aquatic habitat protection and restoration.

Water Institute members Dr. Nandita Basu and Dr. Julie Mai recently hosted a webinar showcasing the POSEIDON Water Quality Portal, a collaborative platform that uses AI to transform water quality data into actionable insights for researchers, watershed managers, and communities.

The WaterLeadership | Knowledge Mobilization 101 workshop brought together more than 40 undergraduate and graduate students eager to learn how to translate their research into real-world impact.

Water Institute delegation visits the University of São Paulo (USP) as part of a long-term research collaboration on water (in)security and welcomes visiting USP students to campus

Between October 15-17, 2025, Water Institute members David Rudolph, Philippe Van Cappellen, Andrea Brookfield and Executive Director Roy Brouwer joined University of São Paulo colleagues for a field visit as part of the project SACRE: Integrated Water Solutions for Resilient Cities.

On Thursday, September 25, 2025, Water Institute member Dr. Nandita Basu, Canada Research Chair in Global Water Sustainability and Ecohydrology, joined leading experts speaking at the FLOW x Massey Freshwater Symposium, Ensuring the FLOW: Water Security in Canada and the World. Hosted by the Forum for Leadership on Water (FLOW) and Massey College, the invite-only gathering brought together fewer than 80 high-level participants, including scientists, policymakers, and leaders from national and international water organizations. Water Institute member Dr. Dustin Garrick, University Research Chair in Water and Development Policy and Director of the Collaborative Water Program, also attended alongside Dr. Basu.

In September, the Water Institute’s Collaborative Water Program (CWP) once again took graduate students beyond the classroom and into the Grand River watershed for WATER 602: Integrated Water Management. Over three days, students travelled the length of the river from its headwaters near Luther Marsh, ON to Six Nations of the Grand River, to explore how water connects communities, ecosystems, and economies, and to grapple with the complex trade-offs inherent in water management.