News

John Cabeen Beatty III (November 27, 1947 – July 2, 2020)

John Cabeen Beatty III passed away peacefully in his sleep in the early morning of July 2, 2020 at his home on Gabriola Island, British Columbia. He was born in New York City on November 27, 1947. His father was a lawyer and later a member of the Oregon State Legislature and a judge. His mother was a founding research scientist at the Oregon Primate Research Center whose public service included membership on the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council under three consecutive governors.

Professor Raouf Boutaba will become the eighth Director of the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, a four-year appointment that begins on July 1, 2020.

He brings to this leadership position 21 years of experience at the University of Waterloo that spans excellence in research, teaching, mentorship and service in both the Cheriton School of Computer Science and the Faculty of Mathematics.

A new study, led by Apoorva Chauhan, a postdoctoral researcher at the Cheriton School of Computer Science, found that in evaluating the trustworthiness of social media accounts named after crisis events, people sometimes pay attention to the page’s profile picture, name, the number of followers it has, and spelling and grammatical errors.

“Some of these things can be easily spoofed,” said Dr. Chauhan. “People need to think beyond things that can be easily manipulated and look at the authenticity of the source of information.”

Cheriton School of Computer Science PhD students Brad Glasbergen and Michael Abebe, along with Professors Khuzaima Daudjee, Daniel Vogel and Jian Zhao, have received the Best Demonstration Award at the 2020 ACM Special Interest Group on Management of Data (SIGMOD) Conference.

Cheriton School of Computer Science Professors Edward Lank, Kate Larson, Ondřej Lhoták, M. Tamer Özsu, Peter van Beek and Troy Vasiga have each received a 2019 Outstanding Performance Award. Established in 2005, these awards recognize University of Waterloo faculty members for their outstanding contributions in teaching, scholarship and service.

Computer science graduate Jameson Weng has been awarded a Governor General’s Silver Medal, a prestigious national recognition of undergraduate students who have attained the highest academic standing during their degrees.

In Jameson’s case, that distinction was an average of 97 percent across his undergraduate courses.

Women in Computer Science has received $90,000 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council’s PromoScience Program to establish Girls Mean Business. This new WiCS outreach program will encourage girls and young women in grades 6 to 12 to explore technology and to develop their entrepreneurial skills.

Cheriton School of Computer Science Research Professor Maura R. Grossman was one of eight recipients of a Faculty Teaching or Service Award from York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School.

Waterloo-based Inductiv Inc., an AI start-up that uses machine learning to automate the task of identifying and correcting errors in data, has been bought by tech giant Apple.

Solaiappan Alagappan, Daniel Herman, Wanxin Li and Blake VanBerlo have each received a Vector Scholarship in Artificial Intelligence from the Vector Institute. Valued at $17,500, these prestigious graduate scholarships recognize exceptional students and support their studies in top artificial intelligence–related master’s program in Ontario.