News

Jiawen Stefanie Zhu (BCS ’24) has won the Best Poster award at Graphics Interface 2025, Canada’s top conference on computer graphics and visualization, and human-computer interaction.

Jiawen completed her undergraduate studies at the Cheriton School of Computer Science in 2024. Now, as a PhD student at the University of Washington, her research focuses on interactive systems that can enhance human–human and human–AI collaboration. In particular, she is “exploring ways to help people navigate our multilingual world.”

Professor Emeritus Douglas Robert Stinson has received the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award from CS-Can | Info-Can, the national non-profit organization dedicated to representing computer science and the interests of the discipline across Canada.

PhD graduate Ludwig Wilhelm Wall (PhD ’24) and his supervisors, Professors Daniel Vogel and Oliver Schneider, have received a Best Paper Honourable Mention Award at the annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI).

Launched by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), CHI is the leading conference in human-computer interaction (HCI) research and one of the top-ranked conferences in computer science. This year’s conference occurred in Yokohama, Japan, from April 26th to May 1st, 2025.

Valentio Iverson, a fourth-year Computer Science major, has won the 2025 Germain-Erdős award, a recognition conferred annually for “remarkable contributions to basic mathematical research” by a student who has done a successful Undergraduate Research Assistant placement.

Professor Sepehr Assadi and his international collaborators — Soheil Behnezhad, Sayan Bhattacharya, Martín Costa, Shay Solomon and Tianyi Zhang — have received a Best Paper Award at STOC 2025, the 57^th ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing.

Instead of typing furiously and constantly hitting backspace, what if you could code by just drawing out your ideas?

This vision is becoming a reality thanks to Ryan Yen (MMath ’24), a recent master’s graduate of the Cheriton School of Computer Science, and Professors Jian Zhao and Daniel Vogel. While at Waterloo, Yen co-developed Code Shaping, an AI-powered software that allows programmers to edit their code through free-form sketches. ­

University Professor M. Tamer Öszu has received the Award of Excellence in Graduate Supervision, a prestigious recognition conferred annually since 2005 by Waterloo’s Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs in collaboration with the Graduate Student Association.

A lot has happened to Kristy Gao (BCS ’22) since graduating from the University of Waterloo, nearly three years ago.

She moved to San Francisco for her first post-graduation job. Started a book club to make friends. Got into an accident, where she, a Canadian, had to navigate the complexities of the American healthcare system. Quit her job to launch a health-tech startup, Cenote, with two people she met from her book club. Applied to Y Combinator (YC), the world’s largest and most competitive startup accelerator. Got accepted by YC and received $500,000 USD in seed funding. 

We connected with our alum about her unique entrepreneurship journey, her passion for diversity, equity and inclusive (DEI) initiatives, and her words to her younger self. 

1Password’s global cybersecurity leadership protects more than 150,000 businesses and millions of consumers, enabling safe online experiences around the world

Vasisht Duddu is one of 24 recipients internationally and one of two from Canada to receive a 2024 IBM PhD Fellowship. Established in 1951, these competitive graduate fellowships recognize and support outstanding PhD students around the world.