News
Winners announced: Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Junior Member, 2017-18
We are delighted to announce that Remus Radu, the Postdoctoral Fellow, and Timothy Yusun, Sessional Lecturer, have been selected as the winners of the Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Junior Member of the UTM MCS Community for 2017-18.
Assistant Professor Sanja Fidler to lead new Nvidia research lab in Toronto
Graphics chip giant Nvidia Corp. is launching a new artificial intelligence research lab in Toronto to be headed by the University of Toronto Mississauga’s Sanja Fidler, making it the latest Silicon Valley heavyweight to tap the city’s rich vein of AI research. Read more at: http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/main-news/utm-computer-vision-expert-lead-new-nvidia-research-lab-toronto
Congratulations to Rajni Lala, Assistant to the Chair, on a recent retirement!
Our heartfelt thank you goes out to Rajni Lala, our Assistant to the Chair, for the many years of excellent service in our department. Best wishes to Rajni on very happy retirement and on opening a new exciting page in her life!
2018 High School Teacher CS/Math Workshop
In June 2018, MCS has again successfully hosted a High School CS/Math Teacher Workshop with teachers from the GTA and surrounding areas. This year, the workshop was titled “A Dialogue on CS and Math Education”. The objective was to create an on-going conversation between high school teachers and university instructors to better support and guide our students for success in their academic endeavours. All workshop activities had a focus on teaching strategies that can be brought into both high school and university classrooms, and our dialogue included discussions on the challenges and successes that all educators experience when teaching students in the transitional period from Grade 12 high school to first-year university.
For further information, please see the link here or directly contact Tyler Holden (tyler.holden@utoronto.ca) and/or Andie Burazin (a.burazin@utoronto.ca).
Information Security Students won First Place at the 2018 Toronto Cyber Security Challenge
Darren Hobin, Nimesha Jayawardena, Darshan Mehta, and Rajdeep Nanua, winners of the 2018 Toronto Cyber Security Challenge. http://cybersecuritychallenge.ca/cyberscsi-toronto-cyberscsi-toronto-media/Prizes for first place incuded a trophy, security training, gift cards and first crack at internships at Bell, CIBC, EY, Secure Sense and Security Compass.
Congratulations are due to our UTM Information Security Students and their supervisor Arnold Rosenbloom!
Canadian Math Kangaroo 2018 Contest
Early in the morning of March 18th, 2018, the Instructional Building of the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) campus thrummed with life. Over 600 students, from grades 1 to 12, had descended on the campus, along with their parents and entourages. The students were there to write the Math Kangaroo Contest, a contest held worldwide each year to promote the enjoyment of mathematics among elementary and high school students. Anxious parents led their children into four large lecture halls, where volunteers from the Math and Computational Science Department watched over them as they wrote the exam, which ranged from 45 to 75 minutes.
After the contest, volunteers carefully marked the exams, the results of which will be made public in an award ceremony to be held during the summer. Congratulations and thanks to all participants, volunteers, and parents; we hope to see you all next year!
CS Student Won Tech Challenge at MIT Hacking Arts 2017
One of our students, Mahika Phutane, traveled to Boston to attend the MIT Hacking Arts conference (a Media Lab sponsored event). Her team (including students from Harvard and RISD) ended up winning a specific tech challenge as well as "Hacking Arts Best Overall Hack."
Click here to see more about MIT Hacking Arts 2017.
2017 MCS Awards Reception
On Thursday, October 19th, the department held the MCS Awards Reception, celebrating and recognizing students and faculty for their achievements. We were delighted to have two of our donors, Olga Fraser and Doris Geddes, join us in congratulating the award winners. Here is a link to the photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/charlenechu/albums/72157688099629754
2017 Science Rendezvous
Canadian Math Kangaroo 2017 Contest
Daniel Wigdor promoted to Associate Professor
Daniel Wigdor of our department has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor effective July 1, 2016. Congratulations!
UTM Graduate Research Colloquium 2016
On Monday, May 2, UTM held its second annual Graduate Research Colloquium where graduate students from different departments had a chance to present their research to the broader academic community.
We are proud of two of our Math graduate students who presented at the event: Jeremy Lane gave an oral presentation on "The qualitative and quantitative geometry of phase space in classical mechanics" and Charlene Chu had a poster presentation on "Polygons on a Lattice". Congratulations to Charlene Chu on winning first prize for Best Poster Presentation. For more information about the event, please visit here.
Canadian Math Kangaroo 2016 Contest
It was a very busy day at UTM this past Sunday, March 20th. UTM hosted the annual Canadian Math Kangaroo Contest as well as the March Break Open House.
With over 450 students from grades 1 through 12 participating in the math competition, the event was a success. We’d like to congratulate everyone who wrote the contest and thank the MCS staff and undergraduate and graduate student-volunteers who donated their time to make this day possible.
Photos from the 2016 Canadian Math Kangaroo Contest can be found here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/charlenechu/albums/72157663857056813
CS Students Get a Publication into RUCS
Two CS students, Sihan Zheng and Emmanuel Ifemade, get a publication into RUCS -- the undergraduate research journal--this year. They're in the software projects category:
http://rucs.ca/#software-projects
They are under the supervison of Andrew Petersen.
2015 MCS Awards Reception
On Tuesday, October 20th, the department held its first ever MCS Awards Reception, celebrating and recognizing students and faculty for their achievements. Some of the awards received were Governor General's Medal and Founders Gold Medal for graduating students, NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award and Dean's Excellence Award, Anne Holden Scholarship, Doris Geddes Scholarship, Elizabeth and William Star Award, June Scott Award, Olga Fraser Award and Peter Fantham Scholarship for current students, as well as Excellence in Teaching awards for faculty. We are so proud to have such students and faculty in our department!
Here is a link to the photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/charlenechu/albums/72157660181905495
Canadian Math Kangaroo 2015 Contest
On Sunday, March 29th, UTM hosted close to 600 students of all grade levels for the annual Mathematics Kangaroo Competition.
Math Kangaroo Contest is not exactly a one-day event though. Many students participated in numerous preparation sessions before enrolling into the contest even though participation was not mandatory.
The event could not take place without the work and dedication of undergraduate and graduate student-volunteers who generously donated their time to invigilate the contest, grade the answer sheets and to make the students and their parents welcome at UTM.
If you like to take a peek at how the day unfolded, please enjoy the photos taken by Charlene Chu, the head volunteer and Mariya Boyko, the UTM Math Kangaroo helper at this link:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/charlenechu/sets/72157651675077945/
2015 March Break Open House
On March 22, 2015, our campus welcomed more than 3000 visitors including approximately 1000 prospective students. Several members of the department came out to deliver engaging talks to about 150 students and their parents. Shay Fuchs spoke about the requirements of the program and played mathematical games with the students. Jerry Brunner gave a lecture titled, " Why Statistics is better than ice cream". Arnold Rosenbloom showed examples of what and how students will learn as a Computer Science student at UTM.
Ilia Binder promoted to Full Professor
Ilia Binder of our department has been promoted to the rank of Full Professor effective July 1, 2015. Congratulations!
Mathematical Musings with Konstantin Khanin
Shay Fuchs promoted to Senior Lecturer
Dr. Shay Fuchs of our department has been promoted to the rank of Senior Lecturer effective July 1, 2015. Congratulations, Shay!