Physicist receives national photonics award

The Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) and the Institute national d’optique have awarded Professor Melanie Campbell the 2014 CAP-INO Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Applied Photonics.

This prestigious award acknowledges Campbell’s numerous contributions to the field of visual optics and imaging of structures within the eye.

"I am honoured to accept this award and pleased that I have had the opportunity to do the research that I love,” said Campbell, who is from the Department of Physics and Astronomy and cross-appointed to the School of Optometry and Vision Science.

Campbell’s work on optical imperfections in human and animal eyes has and will likely result in earlier detection methods and better treatments for several eye diseases.

For example, her fundamental study of crystalline lens optics has helped researchers explain the loss of near vision (presbyopia) with age and spurred new treatments to improve vision in elderly patients.

More recently, Campbell’s research into eye imaging has led her to patent several methods including one to image a protein marker in living eyes, which could lead to a non-invasive test for Alzheimer’s disease.

“I owe a great debt to all those who offered me early training and exposure to the excitement of research across boundaries. I would also like to acknowledge the key contributions of each of my collaborators," said Campbell.

In June, Campbell will give a plenary lecture and receive her medal at the 2014 CAP Congress hosted by Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario.

 

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Enterprise Co-op and the Velocity ecosystem

by Kaitlyn Holbein.

Waterloo is known as an innovative institution due to its strengths in entrepreneurship and co-operative education.  Enterprise Co-op (E Co-op) combines these strengths by allowing students to receive co-op credit for their entrepreneurial efforts. This might not be news for most Waterloo students, but did you know that E Co-op students can also tap into the wider entrepreneurial environment at Waterloo, including such programs as Velocity?

Mike Kirkup, director of Velocity, explains that these programs intersect and benefit each other.

“E Co-op is there to help students looking to build up their own business on a co-op term, and Velocity is a place where we help people to form, start, and run their own companies. So the programs are extremely complementary.”

While students don’t receive academic credit for participating in Velocity events, the programs offered by Velocity do give students many other advantages – such as the opportunity to meet other entrepreneurial-minded individuals. Programs like Velocity Residence, a living space for enterprising Waterloo students, and Velocity Alpha, a set of weekly workshops and events available to the larger UWaterloo community, allow for students with a vast array of different skill sets to connect and to potentially team up to begin a business.

New partners can then make use of the E Co-op program to work on their ideas while gaining co-op credit.

This was the case for both Mike Reid, co-founder of SparkGig, and Ronuk Raval (pictured above, with the EnCircle team at the Garage), co-founder of EnCircle, both of whom met their co-founders through the Velocity ecosystem and then went on to do E Co-op terms to develop their businesses.

During their recent winter 2014 E Co-op terms, and afterwards, both Mike and Ronuk worked on their startups out of the Velocity Garage. Velocity Garage offers free co-working space to early-stage startups. Startups get into Velocity Garage through an application process, or by winning the Velocity Fund Finals, which are held three times a year.

“Everyone’s working super hard. It’s motivating,” says Mike of the space. “There’s probably about 30 companies in there and everyone just feeds off of everyone else’s energy.”

Ronuk likewise finds the Garage to be an ideal working environment for his team. The bright, open-concept design reminds him of the office space at Facebook, where he worked as a co-op student in 2011 and 2012.

“The Garage is awesome. It has that same environment as Facebook. It worked well for me there, and it works well for me here.”

Of the E Co-op program, Mike and Ronuk both emphasize the merits of the outstanding workshops and courses offered during Ignition Week, the first week of the term. Mike further explains that the supportive community surrounding E Co-op is also a major advantage. He recommends the experience for all Waterloo students.

“What’s cool about E co-op is it can give you a better idea about what you may or may not want to do in the future. Sometimes people who go off and work at bigger companies get a more narrow view. Working on a startup involves touching on so many different things; you wear a lot of different hats. What you learn from the experience is really valuable.”More information about E Co-op is available at the E Co-op website. The next E Co-op information session is on July 7^th, from noon to 1:30 p.m., at the Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre in suite 240 of the Accelerator Building in the David Johnston Research and Technology Park.

More information about Velocity, including upcoming Velocity Alpha talks and workshops, Velocity Residence, Velocity co-working spaces, and Velocity Fund Finals is available on the Velocity website.

 

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Retirement celebration for Mark Zanna Friday

On Friday, June 20, the Department of Psychology is hosting a retirement celebration for Mark Zanna.

Professor Zanna, who officially retired on May 1, spent nearly his entire career at Waterloo, having arrived here in 1975 as a tenured associate professor in the Psychology Department. He became a professor in July 1979. He also held the position of Associate Chair during the years from 1983 through 1988. He twice served as chair of the department.

Zanna studies the social psychology of attitudes and persuasion with continuous funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) as well as other agencies.

He has been the long-time co-editor of the Ontario Symposium on Personality and Social Psychology (since 1981) and of the Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (since 1991), two major edited book series in social psychology.  He has also been elected to the presidencies of the two major international learned societies in social psychology, the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (1985) and the Society of Personality and Social Psychology (1997). 

Zanna has received career awards for distinguished scientific contribution from the Canadian Psychological Association, the Society of Personality and Social Psychology, and the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, to name a few. At Waterloo, Mark received the inaugural Excellence in Research Award in 2000, was selected as an inaugural University Professor in 2004, and was chosen for the inaugural Excellence in Graduate Supervision award in 2005.  A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada since 1999, he was made a Killam Prize Laureate in 2011.

The Department of Psychology will be celebrating Zanna's retirement on Friday, June 20 following an invited address by one of his former PhD students, James Olson of Western University, in PAS 3026 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Festivities will take place at the University Club from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

 

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Simulated emergency exercise and other notes

If you happen to notice a number of emergency vehicles on campus tomorrow, don't panic: The University of Waterloo and Waterloo Fire Rescue will be conducting a joint training exercise involving an emergency response to a simulated spill of hazardous materials.

The exercise will be held on Thursday, June 19 from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. in the area between ESC and C2 and inside the ESC building. The Science road will be barricaded at the entrance to EIT and access to the ESC loading dock will be restricted during the training exercise.

The next Strategic Plan Mini Town Hall takes place today in Environment 3, room 3142, at 2:00 p.m. The topic for this meeting is the Robust Employer-Employee Relationship. The meeting will be livecast.

Human Resources is reporting that employee Philip Kalb died May 8. Phil was employed as an Electrical Technician in IST since November 1988. He is survived by his spouse, Debra.

Retiree Gordon Wagner died June 15. Wagner started working at the University in April 1983. He worked as a Custodian Foreperson in Plant Operations prior to his retirement in April 1993. Wagner was predeceased by his wife, Shirley.

The Registrar's Office has announced that Course Selection Week for Fall 2014 courses has been scheduled for June 23 to 29. Incoming first-year students may select their fall 2014 courses through their Quest accounts (instructions are online). Depending on program, plan, or major, the core or required courses will be placed onto a students' course list.

Course schedules can still be adjusted during the drop/add period from July 17 to September 19. Students can drop courses without penalty until September 26.

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