'Earth and environmental sciences'

Another department in UW's faculty of science has adopted a double-barrelled name to reflect the broadening of the disciplines it now teaches.

"Earth and environmental sciences" joins the trend that's been set by "physics and astronomy", "mechanical and mechatronics engineering", "health studies and gerontology" and others. The new name was approved by UW's senate this spring and came into use July 1, the date when the department also acquired a new chair.

Science still has a couple of the shortest department names — "biology" and "chemistry" — and boasts one-word schools of optometry and pharmacy. Physics, which picked up "astronomy" last year, and earth sciences (which some other institutions still call "geology") complete its sextet of academic units.

The department of earth and environmental sciences "has strong programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in hydrogeology, groundwater-surface water interactions and environmental geochemistry and in 2007 will be offering an undergraduate option in atmospheric sciences," the senate was told when it approved the new name. "The name change will more accurately reflect the current scope of research and teaching activities within the department.

"In recent years many Earth Sciences/Geology departments across Canada have adopted similar name changes. This change will allow the University of Waterloo to compete more effectively with other institutions for both undergraduate and graduate students with an interest in the environmental aspects of the earth sciences."

A public event in the fall will celebrate the new name, says Barry Warner (left), who took over July 1 as chair of the department. He succeeds Bob Gillham in that position.

"I have switched departments and returned to earth sciences," says Warner, noting that he first came to UW as a faculty member in that department, then moved to the department of geography in the faculty of environmental studies. In geography, he headed the Wetlands Research Centre and has had extensive publicity for his involvement in a huge project to restore the damaged wetlands of Iraq.

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Service makes students easy riders

A group of UW students are hoping to get somewhere, literally, with a new company that offers an online ride-matching service.

It's a service for students called Zimride that allows users to find transportation — students heading home for the long weekend, for instance, or staff commuting daily to campus and home again. Both ride-requests and ride-offers can be posted.

“But that’s not all!” says Rajat Suri, a chemical engineering student who’s leading the project under the umbrella of the UW Sustainability Project. “It's also connected into the most popular social networking site on campus, Facebook. People can log in with their Facebook IDs and 'share' ride information with all their hundreds of Facebook friends.”

Suri explains the need for Zimride: “People can and would share rides, but most drivers don't know who needs a ride, and most passengers don't know who is driving where. If there was a way to match these two groups together, we could possibly see a lot more rides shared, and all the advantages to society that comes with that. It's true there is a ride-board in the Student Life Centre, but that's about the highest technology of ride-sharing service available to students at UW. A little lame for the 'most innovative school' in Canada!”

Zimride, he explains, uses Google Maps to locate destinations and simplify ride-matching. “It allows you to log in with your Facebook ID, post rides on the site and share all your ride-offers or ride-requests. In turn, you can view the profiles of anyone who you might be interested in riding with, look at common friends and generally assess whether you'd feel comfortable sitting a car with the person for an extended period.”

Says another of the participants, science and business student Michael Fagan: “This is the sort of tool that gets better as more people use it. It is about changing people's behaviour, and that doesn't happen overnight."

Suri picks up the story: “The benefits of sharing rides are manifest. UW students, faculty or staff can find rides to get to their destinations, drivers can split gas costs and everyone else in the community enjoys less traffic and lower pollution.

“Previously, online ride-sharing was a risky and difficult endeavour for any member of the UW community. Finding a ride on a website like Craigslist (currently the most popular ride-sharing site) or even the ride board in the SLC would be fraught with uncertainty and hazard. There was simply no way to find out about a potential ride-sharing partner — your driver could be your real-estate agent or a newly released axe-murderer. He (or she?) could come pick you up on time, or leave you hanging. There was no accountability, no trust and consequently no real step-change in the culture of ride-sharing at UW. Car owners still prefer to drive empty cars over long distances, paying hefty gas costs, and passengers still have to desperately beg for rides last minute, rent cars or suffer a long, expensive bus/train ride. Everyone still loses.

“Social-networking has changed the game. This disruptive technology has made it possible for people in a specific community, like UW, to establish trust in an online environment.”

He says Zimride is “the first sophisticated utility to take advantage. ... We plan to boost the number of people in the UW community using the service from 500 to 5,000 by the end of the year.”

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More morsels on a muggy Monday

Back to the department of earth and environmental sciences: Shaun Frape, a faculty member there, last month received the O.E. Meinzer Award, which is the highest honour of the Hydrogeology Division of the Geological Society of America. Says department chair Barry Warner: "It is presented annually to the author or authors of a published paper or body of papers of distinction that advanced the science of hydrogeology or some closely related field. Dr. Frape is the third recipient in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences of this prestigious award. I believe it is unprecedented in the history of the award that there has been more than one recipient in the same university, much less the same university department!"

About 150 researchers from many lands are on campus this week for ISSAC 2007 — the annual International Symposium on Symbolic and Algebraic Computation, hosted by the Symbolic Computation Group in UW's school of computer science. Preliminary sessions were held yesterday, there was a welcome reception last night in the Davis Centre lounge, and presentations begin in earnest today in Davis seminar rooms, on such topics as "Differential forms in computational algebraic geometry" and "Structured matrix methods for polynomial root-finding". A glance at the agenda reveals presenters from institutions in France, China, Greece, Argentina, China, Russia and a few other lands, and at least one from UW: Mark Giesbrecht of computer science. Giesbrecht is also a member of the local arrangements committee, along with UW's Keith Geddes, George Labahn and Arne Storjohann. Jürgen Gerhard of the CS school is treasurer for the conference, which will wind up late Wednesday with a business meeting of the Special Interest Group on Symbolic and Algebraic Manipulation.

Tammy Ward (left), a UW geography student, died July 17 as a result of the leukemia she had been battling for some time. Death came at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. She is survived by her parents Cecil and Elizabeth, "special friend Richard Sinclair", and a large circle of family and friends. "More than just an integral member of the ACS family, she was to many of us a true and close friend," says a note on the web site of UW's Association of Caribbean Students. "We will forever remember her spirit, her smile and her desire for life," adds a memorial page on Facebook. "Thanks to everyone who came out and gave blood." Friends from the ACS held a memorial gathering in the Student Life Centre July 24, the same day that a service of thanksgiving for her life took place at a church in Jamaica. Another service will be planned at UW in September.

Wayne Oldford of the statistics and actuarial science department has returned from sabbatical and resumed his post as director of the Centre for Computational Mathematics in Industry and Commerce. • Edwin Gover will officially retire August 1 from his post as general maintenance technician at St. Jerome's University, where he's been working since 1996; he'll make his retirement home in Newfoundland. • Leon Andrews, who was a custodian in UW's plant operations department from 1979 to his retirement in August 1989, died June 7.

Word from Ottawa is that the International Development Research Centre and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council have agreed to spend some $6 million on “international research alliances”. Says Chad Gaffield, president of SSHRC: “Today's global challenges will be addressed through international research collaboration. The successful model of community-university research alliances — which SSHRC adopted in 1999 — will have an even greater impact by bringing global perspectives to the analysis of strategic social, economic, environmental and technological issues." University-based experts from Canada and from lower and middle income countries will be invited to submit research proposals in four areas: environment and natural resource management, information and communication technologies for development, the impact of science, technology and innovation policies on development, and social and economic policy related to poverty reduction, growth, health and human rights. Up to nine proposals will receive seed funding to develop “a research alliance that involves both Canadian and LMIC researchers and community partners”, and three alliances will then be funded to a maximum of $2 million each over five years.

And . . . there's a one-day blood donor clinic scheduled for today (10:00 to 4:00) in the Student Life Centre. "We realize this is in between lectures and exams, but we had a clinic cancelled and needed to replace it," says Sharr Cairns of Canadian Blood Services. "We're hoping students, staff, faculty, and anyone else who is around UW on the day will consider donating. Summers are a challenging time for blood donations, but the demand doesn't stop. Patients can't take a break from receiving blood." The turnkey desk is making appointments so donors don't have to wait; anyone with questions can call (888) 236-6283, otherwise known as 888-2-DONATE.

CAR

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