David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
The Cheriton School of Computer Science is named for David R. Cheriton, who earned his PhD in Computer Science at the University of Waterloo in 1978. In 2005, Professor Cheriton made a transformational gift to the school that supports named chairs, faculty fellowships, and graduate scholarships.
News
Alum Q&A: How Nathan Hoel uses AI to save farmers’ lives, time, and money
Nathan Hoel (BCS’ 08) is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of ag-tech startup, BinSentry. Founded in 2017, BinSentry creates AI-sensors that can determine a feed bin’s inventory. The data is displayed on a dashboard, providing an accurate snapshot to poultry and hog farmers.
BinSentry has grown exponentially since its humble beginnings in a rented garage in New Hamburg. Now, it operates in a 11,000-square-foot office space in Downtown Kitchener’s Lang Tannery building, which is home to Communitech, one of Canada’s largest innovation hubs. It monitors more than 25,000 feed bins across North America and has entered the Brazilian market. The company continues to grow, as it recently acquired $15 million in Series B funding.
In this Q&A, Hoel discusses BinSentry’s cutting-edge technology, his entrepreneurship journey and love for the city of Waterloo, where he grew up in.
Joshua Duho Kim dominates the ETHGlobal Hackathon
Congratulations to Joshua Duho Kim, who was named one of the ten finalists at the October ETHGlobal Hackathon in San Francisco. Kim, a Computer Science student, was recognized for his solo development of an app that uses the Story blockchain protocol to mint IP licensing terms for digital content.
Kim has competed in several local hackathons in the past and done well – he and a friend got second place at HackWestern in 2021 – but this was his first time at ETHGlobal. He spontaneously decided to go only a day before the competition, buying a plane ticket using Aeroplan points, staying in “the last available bed” at a local youth hostel, and putting together his entire project alone when he couldn’t find a team that shared his interest in the Story protocol.
Meet Victor Zhong, a computer scientist who seeks to make machine learning more general and efficient through natural language understanding
Victor Zhong joined the Cheriton School of Computer Science as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in August 2024. He also serves as a CIFAR AI Chair and faculty member at the Vector Institute.
His research is at the intersection of machine learning and natural language processing, with an emphasis on using language understanding to learn more generally and efficiently. His research covers a range of topics, including dialogue, code generation, question answering, and grounded reinforcement learning.
Events
PhD Defence • Natural Language Processing • Leveraging the Knowledge of Generalist LLMs for Diverse Objective and Subjective NLP Tasks
Please note: This PhD defence will take place in DC 2310 and online.
Gaurav Sahu, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
Supervisor: Professor Olga Vechtomova
PhD Seminar • Human-Computer Interaction • LTJ: A Capability-based Digital Journaling Tool to Improve Well-being of Newcomers in Life Transition
Please note: This PhD seminar will take place online.
Nabil Bin Hannan, PhD candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
Supervisor: Professor Edith Law
Master’s Thesis Presentation • Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP) • Rust-based Path Coverage-Guided Fuzzing
Please note: This master’s thesis presentation will take place online.
Yunji Kim, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
Supervisor: Professor Meng Xu