Co-op Student of the Year winners named

by Caitlin Feehan.

The results are finally in, and it’s time to introduce you to the 2013 Co-op Students of the Year!

• Applied Health Sciences – Perakaa Sethukavalan
• Arts – Akash Kapoor
• Engineering – Josh Bradshaw
• Environment – Natalie Sham
• Mathematics – Melanie Chanona
• Science – Sorina Chiorean

Today, we focus on the first three students. Their biographies and their work term accomplishments (in alphabetical order based on faculty) follow in today’s article, while the other three winners will be profiled in tomorrow’s article. Read on to learn more and be inspired!

Perakaa Sethukavalan (Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, Health Studies)

Perakaa Sethukavalan worked as a clinical research assistant at Sunnybrook Hospital. Her passion for prostate cancer research motivated her to design effective studies, receive ethics board approval, and collect and analyze the data and publish the results. She is first author on two of the four articles and of six of nine abstracts she has published.

Sethukavalan presented at the 2013 American Society of Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO), and at the 2013 Annual Scientific Meeting of the Canadian Association of Radiation Oncology (CARO), and a poster discussion at the 2013 European Cancer Congress. She published that stereotactic radiation saves cancer patients almost $2,000 in out-of-pocket costs, and showed that a rapid diagnosis prostate centre cut wait times from suspicion to treatment by two months on average.

Akash Kapoor (Faculty of Arts, Accounting and Financial Management)

Akash Kapoor worked at Price Waterhouse Coopers for his last work term. He designed a tool to increase auditing efficiency by 2 per cent, reducing the time spent during an audit engagement by more than 6,500 hours for almost 650 associate level staff.

He plans and leads tax preparation presentations as a volunteer with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario tax clinic, and administers websites for several UWaterloo student clubs and start-ups, and hosts academic and mentorship sessions. He received outstanding evaluations on each of his last three work terms. This is the second time he has won the Co-op Student of the Year Award for the Faculty of Arts.

Josh Bradshaw (Faculty of Engineering, Systems Design)

Josh Bradshaw worked as a web developer at Watrhub for his first work term. On his own initiative, Josh identified and then addressed some small issues with Watrhub’s process, increasing efficiency. The changes he made saved the other employees four to five hours of work each week, and himself one whole day per week.

He also improved an existing piece of Watrhub’s software that built a model of a wastewater treatment plant. Using his impressive skills in software optimization and programming, Bradshaw drastically reduced the time it takes to run the tool (from 11 minutes to eight seconds), which increased the number of clients the company can serve by 60 percent.

Stay tuned – we’ll be discussing the other three winners in tomorrow’s article!

 

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Robots take over PAC for FIRST competition

High school students with a passion for designing, building and programming robots will compete this week at the University of Waterloo in the qualifying round for an international robotics competition.

Thirty teams with names such as SWAT, Warp7, Simbotics, Ice Cubed, BeaverworX, REBotics and Ram-ferno will vie for an invitation to the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) World Championships in St. Louis, Missouri, where they will compete with teams from all over the world for the title of 2014 FRC World Champions.

Today is a practice day for the teams, who have been loading in since 7:45 a.m. this morning. Practice rounds run from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., and from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. today.

This year’s game, Aerial Assist™, is played by two competing alliances of three Robots each on a flat 27’x 54’ field straddled by a lighting truss suspended five feet above the floor. The objective is to score as many balls in goals as possible during a 2 minute, 30 second match.

The match begins with one 10-second Autonomous Period in which robots operate independently of driver. For the rest of the match, drivers remotely control robots from behind a protective wall, with only a single ball in play. Alliances earn large bonuses for “assists”, earned for each robot that has possession of the ball in a designated zone.

Robots are built in six weeks from a common kit of parts, provided by FIRST, and weigh up to 120 lbs. excluding battery and bumpers.

The high-tech sporting competition involves brainstorming, teamwork and mentoring. Referees oversee the contest and judges give awards for design, technology, sportsmanship and commitment. Without weapons, the games are fast-paced and competitive.

"Through FIRST, kids realize that building a robot can be fun and cool," said Rob Gorbet, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Waterloo. "It gives them very real role models, from outside the worlds of professional sports and entertainment. It's about opening their eyes to careers in math, engineering, science and technology - and it works."

FRC challenges teams to not only build competitive robots, but also develop transferable skillsets that aid in career development, such as teamwork, project management, strategic thinking skills, and the need to come up with innovative ways to raise funds. Many teams have mentors from versatile backgrounds including engineering, science, technology, business, and the arts. Students are able to take their knowledge of science and technology and apply it to a variety of fields.

“One of the reasons the University of Waterloo is so proud to host the FIRST Robotics Waterloo Regional is that the objective of the competition – working as a team to solve open-ended, real-world problems – is a goal that our university shares,” said Feridun Hamdullahpur.

The FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Waterloo Regional is one of a series of five FRC regionals held in Ontario. The competitions are organized by FIRST Robotics Canada, and the Ontario FRC Regionals are sponsored by BlackBerry, Bruce Power, Synnex and a number of other leading engineering and technology companies.

The Waterloo Regional competition, open to the public, celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. Following today's practice day, teams begin competition with the Opening Ceremonies on Friday, March 21 at 8:30 a.m. with the excitement building toward the elimination finals on Saturday afternoon in Waterloo's Physical Activities Complex. Admission is free.

 

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Connecting for an international data network

by Julie Friddell.

Earlier this month, Dr. Masaki Kanao from Japan visited the University of Waterloo to lay the groundwork for an international polar data sharing network.  Dr. Kanao is Associate Professor in the Polar Data Center (PDC) and Geoscience Group at the National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) in Tachikawa, Tokyo. His host at Waterloo, Julie Friddell, is the Manager of the Polar Data Catalogue (PDC) and the Canadian Cryospheric Information Network (CCIN), which are part of Professor Ellsworth LeDrew’s research program in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management. Julie and Masaki met in October 2013 as a result of Julie’s participation in the Polar Data Forum on Activities in Global Data Systems, hosted by NIPR and Japan’s National Museum of Science and Nature, among others. The purpose of the forum was to bring caretakers of polar data together to facilitate effective management and sharing of datasets from dozens of countries' research in the Arctic and Antarctica, for the advancement of interdisciplinary science around the globe.

During the conference in Tokyo, Masaki, Julie, and other meeting participants discussed steps required for creating a data sharing network. Following the meeting, Masaki secured funding to travel to Waterloo for three days to meet with Julie and the CCIN/PDC technical staff to work out steps required to establish a live Internet link between the PDC in Japan and the PDC in Waterloo.  Once the link is live, which is expected summer of 2014, polar research data and information from Japan’s PDC and Waterloo’s PDC will be shared back and forth, allowing online users of both PDCs to access polar information and data from two countries instead of just one. Such linking increases the ease with which other researchers and the public can access Arctic and Antarctic research datasets and information, increasing the value of investment in research and facilitating rapid advancement in understanding the changes which are occurring in the earth’s polar regions. Once the initial online connection is established, we will work with our colleagues in other countries to expand the sharing network through similar linkages to numerous polar data portals around the world.

In addition to his working sessions with the CCIN/PDC staff and a tour of the Environment Computing/MAD server rooms, Masaki also met with faculty from the Department of Geography and Environmental Management to discuss their respective research, including his work in "cryo-seismology” to measure earthquake-inducing movements of ice and glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland to understand the relationship of ice melt to climate change. Masaki also met with staff from the UW Library (pictured above) to present his work and to discuss data-related activities at the University, including Data Management Day 2012 and 2013. Videos of Data Management Day are available on the CCIN website.

Pictured above are (l-r) Sandra Keys, Agnes Zientarska-Kayko, Pascal Calarco, and Kathy Szigeti from the UW Library, Brittany Renken from the CCIN/PDC, Masaki Kanao, and Julie Friddell and Yunwei Dong from CCIN/PDC.

Photograph by Pascal Calarco.

 

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For your consideration: Fine Arts' Blank Slate

The Department of Fine Arts and the University of Waterloo Art Gallery (UWAG) are presenting Blank Slate, the 40th annual Undergraduate Exhibition. The exhibition opens today and runs until April 5.

The show features recent artworks by fourth year honours students completing the Fine Arts undergraduate program. Representing a broad spectrum of materials, themes, media and concepts the exhibition reflects the diversity of the program and its students.

"Blank Slate stands as an expression of the art school experience, a beginning and an end," says the exhibition's promotional material. "The journey starts with a world of possibilities: skills to be developed, mediums to be explored and contemporary concerns to be addressed. The blank slate provides a canvas for expression, to be manipulated by the individual artist as they come into their own practice. Upon graduation we again wipe our slates clean and from this end begin our futures. The first mark we make on our slates may be a challenge, but it is a challenge that promises something great."

Students putting their work on display include JoAnn Ball, Michelle Chen, Megan Colley, Ken Cooper, Sophie Côté, Audrey D’Astous, Lindsay Margaret Davies, Sarah E. L .Faucher, Bailey Felkar, Harneet Heer, Danielle Hoevenaars, Alice Xiaohua Huang, Lauren Jenniskens, Teresa Laudenbach, Warren Lebovics, Miranda Lynn Marcotte, Shiori Mine, Katy Missio, [student’s name removed by request], Andreea Nemes, Amber Pacheco, Kimberly Jade Reid, Nicole Robinson, Madhulika Saxena, Julia Scappatura, Lauren Seifried, Élyse Shemilt, Tiya Sisson, Jennifer Yen San So, Minsang Song, Dan Timmins, Alcina Wong, and Amanda Zimmer.

The opening reception takes place today from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at UWAG in East Campus Hall. The exhibition is free and open to the public. UWAG is open Tuesday to Sunday, 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. or by appointment.

 

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Wednesday's notes

The Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies has announced its 2014 Diefenbaker Lecture Series, Literary Studies in the 21st Century, with five talks in March and April. These lectures are being held in conjunction with the search for the next holder of the Diefenbaker Memorial Chair in German Literary Studies. The invited scholars have been asked to explore how literary studies can fulfill the expectations of an academic discipline and connect with a wider audience.

The third talk in the series is scheduled for this evening at 7:00 p.m. in HH 1102. The lecture will be delivered by Kevin Amidon of Iowa State University and is entitled "Tarrying with the positive, or, how I learned to stop worrying and teach literature."

“The Federation of Students has the perfect opportunity for undergraduates that love social media," writes the federation's Jacqueline Martinz. "Focus groups will be held on March 24 and 27 for undergraduates to discuss Feds’ social media initiatives. All attendees will be able to influence the Feds social media strategy for the upcoming academic year. Free pizza and other delicious treats will be served during the focus groups, and attendees will be entered into a draw for two $25 gift cards to be handed out at the end of each session. More information about the focus groups and how to sign up is available online.”

"It is with pleasure that I announce the retirement of Rosemary Chase," writes Peggy Day, service desks manager at the IST CHIP Computer Help Information Place. "Rosemary has been with the University of Waterloo for almost 29 years, starting her employment with secretarial services. She became full time with a position in CEL (Correspondence) and then with French Studies department before moving to ITMS (AV) in 2001. Rosemary has relocated to the west coast, so there will be no formal retirement party."

Here's today's Nutrition Month "myth vs. fact" provided by Health Services Dietician Sandra Ace:

Myth: Only children need milk or milk alternatives for growing bones.

Fact:  It is true that the array of nutrients, and especially calcium, found in milk and milk products are important during childhood. However, bone is living tissue which is constantly being renewed throughout the lifespan. Calcium, vitamin D and other nutrients, along with physical activity, are essential to maintaining a healthy bone mass. Without adequate nutrients, rebuilding is impaired and bones become thinner and more susceptible to fracture. Osteoporosis Canada reports that at least 1 in 3 women and 1 in 5 men will suffer from an osteoporosis-related fracture during their lifetime. To get enough bone-building nutrients, Canada’s Food Guide recommends adults ages 19 to 50 consume 2 serving of milk or milk alternatives daily. If you choose not drink milk, be sure you are getting enough calcium from other foods. 

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