Current students

Professor Jo Atlee has received the 2020 IEEE Technical Council on Software Engineering Distinguished Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Leadership Award. This prestigious recognition is presented annually to an individual for outstanding and sustained leadership in the software engineering community to encourage women to explore science and engineering careers.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, researchers and clinicians have rushed to understand the available treatments and procedures to mitigate this rapidly growing threat to human health. The sheer volume of studies published on COVID-19 — in countries spanning the globe — as well as lessons learned from prior epidemics and pandemics, simply cannot be gathered and assessed quickly enough using traditional manual methods during this time of crisis.

Computer scientists at the Cheriton School of Computer Science have developed a new system that helps Internet users ensure their online data is secure. Called Mitigator, the software-based system includes a plugin that users can install in their browser, which will give them a secure signal when they visit a website verified to process its data in compliance with the site’s privacy policy.

In open source software repositories such as GitHub — an online platform for software development where developers store their projects and collaborate with other developers — the quality of a coder’s technical contributions is undoubtedly important. Such communities have long seen themselves as meritocracies where code is king and decisions are based solely on technical excellence.

A multidisciplinary team of researchers at Waterloo’s Cheriton School of Computer Science and Western University has developed a computational method that within minutes can identify and classify viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, the respiratory pathogen responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.