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On Friday, October 2, the School of Computer Science held the 2026 Cheriton Research Symposium, an annual celebration of scholarly excellence made possible by David R. Cheriton’s generous investment in computer science education.

The event continued with an afternoon poster session, where 12 graduate students presented their research to faculty members, fellow students and poster judges.

Research Professor Maura R. Grossman has received two recognitions highlighting her scholarly contributions at the intersection of law, data governance, and artificial intelligence.

Professor Ian Goldberg has been named a 2026 Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the nation’s highest honour bestowed upon scholars, artists and scientists.

Professor Jimmy Lin has been named a 2026 Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the nation’s highest honour for scholars, artists and scientists.

Four outstanding incoming undergrad students are joining the Cheriton School of Computer Science as Schulich Leaders, through the Schulich Leader Scholarships program, Canada’s most coveted undergraduate scholarship program for students pursuing studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

This year’s cohort includes Business and Computer Science student Angela Ho, and Computer Science students Jerry Li, Bill Xu and Sophia Xu.

Jeffrey Zang is a first-year computer science student at the University of Waterloo. At 15, he landed his first internship and completed four software internships before his 19^th birthday.  

Since high school, he has competed in 17 hackathons, where he built projects from an eye-tracking device to a conversational robot resembling former President Barack Obama. He became the youngest co-chair of Hack the 6ix, Toronto’s largest hackathon. With his help, the hackathon garnered more than 1,100 attendees and secured nearly $50,000 in sponsorship from companies such as Microsoft and Deloitte. He went on to organize six hackathons.

Recent PhD graduate Negar Arabzadeh has won the Early Career Researcher Award from the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval (SIGIR).  

Negar won the award in SIGIR’s Community Engagement category, which recognizes outstanding professional service in the information retrieval community. The award ceremony took place at the 49th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, held in Melbourne, Australia.

Three Cheriton researchers won the Best Paper Award at the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) Symposium on Access Control Models and Technologies (SACMAT), a leading cybersecurity and privacy conference.

SACMAT brings together researchers and practitioners to discuss novel approaches for access control, a security measure that determines who can access, use or interact with protected systems. Scanning your badge to enter your workplace or typing your username and password to log in to your Instagram account are examples of access control.

Congratulations to team G-00SE, whose project “Ariadne” won the 2026 Airbus Fly Your Ideas Challenge. The interdisciplinary five-person team consists of Manya Singla (Computer Science); Mahati Tadepalli (Computer Science/Business Administration); Norah Miriam Shibu (Computer Science); Manasa Srivatsan (Geography and Aviation) and Aaisha Pathan (Computer Science).

The annual Fly Your Ideas Challenge is “designed to inspire the next generation to pioneer sustainable aerospace and shape a safer, more connected world.” University students submit proposals to Airbus and then work directly with industry experts to solve real-life challenges.

Computer science PhD student Bella Chen has won $10,000 in seed funding at the Academy of Research Commercialization’s (ARC) inaugural Pitch Day for her technology designed to support neurodivergent children.

This year, the University of Waterloo’s Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business launched ARC, an initiative for PhD students who are interested in commercializing their deep-tech research.