Words of welcome: this video featuring President Feridun Hamdullahpur sets a welcoming tone for new undergraduate students as they prepare to join our campus community in a few weeks' time.

The video was a collaborative effort involving University Relations, Marketing and Undergraduate Recruitment, Communications and Public Affairs, Creative Services, and the Student Success Office.

 

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Co-op employer survey results released

a message from Co-operative Education & Career Action (CECA).

Recently, the University of Waterloo conducted an online survey of co-op employers with a goal to monitor and improve employer satisfaction.  Overall, the results were very positive and enlightening, and gave Co-operative Education & Career Actions (CECA) a good idea of what employers are happy with and what they are looking for in the future. 

The survey was sent out to approximately 1,800 employers who have been part of the co-op hiring process during the past year, with 661 employers, from as far away as India, taking the time to respond to the survey.

Below is a summary of some of the key findings from the survey, in infographic form (click to enlarge):

Last week’s poll: 70 per cent of you guessed correctly! Last year, 287 info sessions were held. Congratulations to this week’s winner, Jean Webster (Institute for Computer Research).

 

This week’s poll: What percentage of employers conduct interviews face-to-face with students on campus? Take a guess and enter to win a lunch bag!

 

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Prof Googled "award" and his name came up

by Carol Truemner. This piece originally appeared in the Eng-E-News newsletter

Vijay Ganesh, an assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering, is the recipient of funding from the Google Research Awards Program 2013 for his proposal entitled From Functional Regressions to Security Testing.

The Google "unrestricted gift" awards support the work of faculty members at top universities around the world. Ganesh is planning to use the funds that come with the award to hire master's and doctoral candidates to assist him with his research into computer security testing. Computer security is a challenging and exciting topic that requires an inter-disciplinary approach leveraging ideas from testing, formal methods, programming languages, systems and cryptography. In his proposal, Professor Ganesh plans to leverage functional tests that humans routinely write to automatically construct tests for security properties of computer systems.

Ganesh says he's honoured to receive the Google award. "Every year hundreds of faculty apply from all over the world. Only about 10 per cent are successful in receiving the award," he adds.

He received the same award in 2011 in the software engineering category when he was a scientist at MIT. That award was for "String SMT solvers for theories over strings and regular expressions." SMT solvers are computer programs that automatically solve certain kinds of mathematical formulas. They are useful in software testing, formal verification, program analysis and synthesis. The award was transferred to Waterloo Engineering when Ganesh joined the Faculty in September 2012.

Ganesh also recently received acceptance by the Scientific Committee of the Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation to participate in the first Heidelberg Laureate Forum, to be held from September 22 to 27 in Heidelberg, Germany. The Heidelberg Forum is a meeting place where a select-few young faculty and post-docs can meet with Turing award, Fields Medal and Abel Prize winners. Only 200 qualified young researchers are selected to take part in the forum from a pool of thousands of faculty members and postdocs.

 

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Organize for Success update and other notes

"IST's Organize for Success initiative is progressing well," writes Communications Officer Natasha Jennings. "One of the outcomes of the process so far is a number of internal openings posted this week on the My Career website." Visit the Internal opportunities page for more details (requires WatIAM login).

Waterloo alumni are being encouraged to cheer on the Waterloo Warriors with the Alumni Big Ticket, a special offer that provides access to 2013-2014 regular season home games for football, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's volleyball, and men's and women's hockey. Alumni have until December 15 to sign up for the season pass.

Electrical power will be out in several buildings on campus this weekend, according to Plant Operations.

The Brubakers area in the Student Life Centre will be without power from 5:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Friday, August 23 as renovation work is done.

Rooms 110, Room 141B and 141C of the General Services Complex will be without power from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, August 24 for renovation work.

Needles Hall will have electrical power cut on Saturday, August 24 from 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. as repairs are carried out.

In all cases, Plant Operations advises that computer equipment be shut down properly prior to the time the renovations and repairs are to take place. For further information or assistance, contact the Computer Help and Information Place at extension 84357.

 

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