Alumni Digest

Kristin O’Neill (MASc ’24) combined elite hockey with graduate study in psychology at Waterloo. Her work on child development and language helped shape an interest in speech pathology, a field she plans to pursue after hockey.

The university profile traces the support that made this possible, including flexibility as her professional career moved to Montreal. She later made Canada’s 2026 Olympic team and recently signed with San Jose. Her academic life provided a separate source of purpose during an uncertain sporting career.

Alex Rodrigues and Brandon Moak, the 20-something founders of an autonomous trucking company now valued at approximately US $5 billion, don’t have

The official Waterloo report places this work in builders / sf. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

Three alumni from the Faculty of Health share their memories and reminisce about Waterloo while reuniting on vacation in Florida.

The official Waterloo report places this work in alumni / community. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

Celebrating National Volunteer Week

The official Waterloo report places this work in alumni / volunteers. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

An alumni event creates a low-pressure way back to campus community.

The official Waterloo report places this work in alumni / events. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

University of Waterloo Alumni Council members share why they will give on the University’s first-ever Giving Day, Thursday, May 15.

The official Waterloo report places this work in alumni / reflection. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

International Women's Day 2025

The official Waterloo report places this work in alumni / recognition. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

Waterloo mathematics graduate students describe how community changes the texture of graduate life, especially in the long stretch between terms.

The story is a reminder that a summer on campus is not only a pause before the next deadline. It can be a season for finding collaborators, mentors and a daily rhythm that makes difficult work possible.

Dr. Catherine Burns has been selected as the recipient of the 2026 Dr. Suning Wang Award for Outstanding Graduate Mentorship, presented by CAGS.

The official Waterloo report places this work in engineering / mentorship. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

David Carciente joined Waterloo’s first Rising Stars Fellowship cohort in 2024 while studying software engineering at Concordia. In the Vision and Image Processing Lab, he helped make computer vision tools more accessible to marine researchers.

He returned for a master’s in Systems Design Engineering after getting to know the supervisors and research environment. His current work pairs satellite imagery with sea ice charts. The fellowship offered something a prospectus cannot: time to discover what working in a particular lab feels like.

The partnership joins Waterloo research and Airbus expertise around a future of aviation that will need both technical skill and new ways to learn.

It is a fitting August story: the runway is a place of departure, but the work that makes a new route possible happens long before takeoff.

A new Communitech initiative is putting University of Waterloo's students at the centre of efforts to transform how local businesses adopt AI

The official Waterloo report places this work in ai / co-op. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

The collaboration connects Waterloo talent with organizations learning how AI changes everyday work.

A co-op term is often described as a first job. It can also be a guided summer experiment in how to ask better questions inside a real team.

Researchers examined the conditions that help people trust AI systems rather than simply tolerate them.

Trust is not a switch. It is built through clear choices, honest limits and the feeling that someone has thought about the person on the other side of the interface.

A news article announcing that Research Professor Maura R. Grossman has received two awards for her work at the intersection of law, data governance, and AI

The official Waterloo report places this work in computer science / ai. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

A news article announcing the four incoming 2026 Schulich Leaders at the Cheriton School of Computer Science

The official Waterloo report places this work in computer science / students. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

A Waterloo computer science story follows how a failure became part of the teaching, making room for students to see the gap between a clean example and a real system.

That is a good summer lesson for any builder: the bug is information, the reset is part of the work and the next attempt should make the evidence easier to read.

Negar Arabzadeh received an ACM SIGIR community engagement award for work that connects information retrieval with the people who make the field possible.

Summer conferences and community gatherings often reveal the hidden infrastructure of a discipline: generous reviews, open questions and someone willing to bring another person into the room.

The company is applying AI to a process that affects how homes are understood and valued.

The story connects a Waterloo path to a summer question about place: how can a new tool make a familiar civic process clearer without making it feel remote?

Conrad School professors received federal funding to advance research connected to entrepreneurship and innovation.

Funding is the bridge between an intriguing question and the patient summer work of testing it: interviews, prototypes, field notes and the next careful revision.

Michael Benoit has been recognized as one of Canada's Top 40 Under 40® for 2026, one of the country’s most recognized honours for young leaders.

The official Waterloo report places this work in engineering / recognition. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

A new study has identified workflow barriers that contribute to delays, helping health providers improve outcomes for patients across the stroke care pathway.

The official Waterloo report places this work in research / health. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

Research on pilotless planes looks toward missions where distance, weather and access make ordinary travel hard.

The summer image is simple: a machine carrying a question beyond the road, while people on the ground decide what useful reach should look like.

Conrad School student entrepreneurs tackled real-world challenges during the spring term, carrying prototypes from a classroom into conversations with users.

That kind of work has a distinctly summer tempo: fewer fixed rituals, more time to walk a problem, test an assumption and come back with a better version.

Waterloo students explored the relationship between brand, audience and the work a business is trying to do.

For alumni back in the market, the lesson is direct: a memorable story helps people understand a useful product, but the product still has to earn the return visit.

The MBET student showcase brought entrepreneurial projects together for an annual moment of feedback and exchange.

A showcase is a useful summer ritual. It gives an unfinished idea a room, a set of questions and a chance to meet someone who sees the next step.

After arriving at the University of Waterloo as an international student, Robyn Varda Bhola found friendship, community and lasting connections through Math Orientation.

The official Waterloo report places this work in math / belonging. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

The CEMC is helping increase gender equity in mathematics through programs that invite more students into the subject.

The work matters beyond a single camp or classroom. It changes who gets to imagine mathematics as a place where they can stay, contribute and lead.

The University of Waterloo is well represented in the most recent cohort of companies accepted into the Y Combinator (YC), one of the biggest and most presti

The official Waterloo report places this work in builders / yc. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

Karri Melvaer Wallsten (BA ’93) shares memories of being a student in the 1990s and meeting friends who remain close and recently travelled to Mexico together.

The official Waterloo report places this work in alumni / community. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

For 60 years, the University of Waterloo has inspired new generations of students and new waves of innovation and discovery.

The official Waterloo report places this work in campus / then and now. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

A class anniversary page turns old buildings into a way of remembering student life.

The official Waterloo report places this work in alumni / campus history. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

The Future Cities Institute’s CIVIC program connects Waterloo students with municipal problems. In Edmonton, Preethi Raghuraman developed SmartShift to help with staffing in Parks and Roads Services, accounting for collective agreements, preferences and certification requirements.

The program treats a work term as a project that can continue beyond one student. Raghuraman later worked with a Planning student on a report intended to help other municipalities learn from the experience. The next challenge is making useful work transferable without losing its local constraints.

Since 1957, the University of Waterloo has been recognized for its rigorous research, entrepreneurial thinking and cross-disciplinary work.

The official Waterloo report places this work in campus / mascots. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

An article detailing the achievements that led to Professor Ian Goldberg being named a 2026 Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

The official Waterloo report places this work in computer science / privacy. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

Blake Madill received the 2026 Faculty of Mathematics award, recognition that follows the quiet work of helping students see a problem differently.

Summer is a good time to notice the people whose explanations stay with us after a course ends. The award makes that invisible labour visible.

David Carciente, a former Rising Stars Fellow, re-joins Waterloo Engineering for his graduate studies.

The official Waterloo report places this work in engineering / graduate study. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

Kristy Gao's path from Waterloo to San Francisco runs through a small community.

The official Waterloo report places this work in alumni / yc. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

PitchBook's 2026 rankings place Waterloo seventh globally, the first time a Canadian school has broken into the top 10

The official Waterloo report places this work in entrepreneurship / pitchbook. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

Waterloo’s Conrad School reported a new approach to entrepreneurship education that puts experimentation and reflection beside the usual business toolkit.

For an alumni reader, the useful detail is the invitation to keep learning in public: try a small idea, listen to the people around it and return with a sharper question.

Over the past eleven years, Hack the North has grown to become a major force in the world of hackathons.

The official Waterloo report places this work in hackathons / community. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

Press release about a new device that continuously monitors key indicators of donor lung health, potentially helping to identify more viable donor lungs.

The official Waterloo report places this work in research / health. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.

Biologist Julie Messier, MSc student Sabina Henry and collaborators examined black spruce growth in warmer, drier conditions. Better growth was associated with three traits together: fewer needles, conservative water use and conservative carbon use.

The combination matters. A single apparently helpful trait did not explain the pattern on its own. The research gives forest practitioners a more specific question to investigate when selecting trees for changing conditions; it does not establish that one planting strategy works everywhere.

GeoSAFE, a Waterloo-linked project, helps communities plan for climate risks by making local information easier to use.

Its summer relevance is practical: before the next hot day or heavy storm, people need a shared picture of what could change and which decisions are still open.

Waterloo Engineering students sweep the podium at a national steel design competition.

The official Waterloo report places this work in engineering / students. It is a source-linked brief for alumni readers; the source page remains the authority for names, dates and outcomes.